


The Undone Years

by vain_glorious



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Background Het, F/M, Gen, Head Injury, Reality Bending, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vain_glorious/pseuds/vain_glorious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A head injury changes Sheppard's reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For[](http://lostcityfound.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://lostcityfound.livejournal.com/) **lostcityfound** We'll-always-have-Pegasus challenge. Prompt: John Sheppard/Teyla Emmagan - a balanced ending (or beginning) between Pegasus and Earth, and hope for the future? Apologies to the prompter for how Gen this is, and apologies to Gen readers for how Het this is.

“We couldn’t have picked a path with fewer slimy rocks?” Rodney McKay snapped, barely audible over the squelching of four pairs of boots in the mud that made up the ground between said slimy rocks.

“We’re almost to the ‘Gate,” John Sheppard said, unable to answer that question since he hadn’t picked this path. Ronon had, and he hadn’t fallen once. It was all rocky swampland, soggy and sloppy with tangled vines and fallen trees of a long dead forest. Sheppard and McKay were both covered in mud, front and back. Teyla, like Ronon, was aggravatingly graceful _and_ clean. The next time McKay wanted to investigate vague energy readings in a place like this, Sheppard was going to let him go by himself and get eaten by Swamp Thing.

“There is a steep creek bank ahead,” Teyla announced. “You may hold on to me, Rodney, if you are afraid.”

“What?” McKay said, insulted. “No. I’m not _afraid_. I just don’t have the balance of two circus freaks like you.”

“You can hold my hand,” Ronon invited, and even though he was behind Sheppard, he knew the man was grinning.

He heard Rodney sputter in response. But he didn’t catch the man’s actual words. Sheppard’s front foot slid off of a rock and he stumbled.

“John?” Teyla said, sharply.

Sheppard tried to find traction, but instead he found the edge of the creek Teyla had warned about. He went to step back, but his rear foot slipped and sent him lurching forward.

“Ah, shit,” Sheppard managed to say, arms pin-wheeling. He felt one of his teammates’ hands grasp at his elbow, but it was too late. Sheppard grabbed for the hand, anyway.

Then he was falling, nearly headfirst, towards the mucky, rocky surface meters and meters below. Sheppard’s arms were still up, reaching out for anything to stop his momentum. He tried to get his hands down to protect his face.

Sheppard wasn’t sure what happened next. Pain sliced through his head. He tasted blood in his mouth. His vision was suddenly full of red and white fireworks that burned intensely and turned gray.

Then there was only blackness.

~

Sheppard woke up with a headache. A deep, throbbing one birthed from what felt like the center of his skull. It was the only thing he could feel, the rest of his body painless but also fuzzy and distant. He was on his back on a gurney, the somewhat familiar hum of medical instruments surrounding him.

There may have been tubes and instruments hooked up to him, but it was kind of hard to tell. Sheppard couldn’t move. He also didn’t really have the energy to try, though, and couldn’t keep enough focus to be alarmed about either. It was also hard to decide if he was fully awake or dreaming this strangely gentle paralysis.

Sometimes he was fairly sure he was awake. Genuine pain slipped through, clamping down on the bones of his skull like a vice. He could feel his body, then, heavy and dull limbs that still wouldn’t move. His eyelids were also heavy and he couldn’t always tell or control whether they stayed open or drifted shut as he blinked.

People were with him. Around him, a haze of voices and movements rarely distinct enough to identify. Keller, he figured. The infirmary staff. Maybe his team.

Eventually, Sheppard managed to both keep his eyes open and his thoughts focused enough to assess his surroundings. The agony in his head receded then, replaced by total, stunning astonishment.

Sitting by his bedside, right at his elbow and close enough to touch, was Aiden Ford.

Sheppard stared, seized by shock and confusion. Followed shortly by a tangle of guilt, fear, and anger. It was too much. His vision blurred and he fell back into the milky emptiness.

When he woke up again, Ford was still there. Sitting calmly, his face startlingly relaxed. He was almost smiling. Sheppard hadn’t seen that in so long. And it was nice, in as much as it wasn’t real.

Ford stayed.

He was talking, Sheppard eventually realized. It wasn’t taunting or recriminating, threatening or accusing. It was very hard to follow, but Ford’s voice sounded friendly and upbeat.

Ford wasn’t always there, but whenever he was gone he always came back. He kept grinning at Sheppard. The first thing besides pain that Sheppard could feel breaking through the cottony blanket that seemed to be covering his entire being was the pressure of Ford’s hand, resting lightly where Sheppard’s arm lay against the edge of the bed.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Sheppard’s voice returned.

He blinked up at Ford, his mind suddenly clearer. “Hey,” he said, hearing it come out as a croak more than a word.

“You’re awake!” Ford said, smiling broadly and leaning closer.

Sheppard swallowed, tried to clear his throat. “What the hell,” he said, coughing. “What the hell are you doing here?”

~

Ford went away after that.

Sheppard didn’t completely follow. Ford was replaced by a woman in a white lab coat. A doctor, Sheppard belatedly realized when she tried to blind him with a penlight. It _hurt_. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to violently turn his face away. That hurt even more, so much so he could hear his own voice squawk hoarsely in protest.

“You need to keep still,” the woman said, and he could feel her hands on the side of his neck. “Shhh.”

Afraid she’d stick another fucking lunar eclipse in front of his eyes, Sheppard kept his lids tightly closed.

The doctor wouldn’t let him.

“Can you open your eyes for me?” the woman asked, gentle and coaxing like he was a child. “C’mon.”

Sheppard _hated_ being talked to like that, even if he had no idea who this lady was. So he did open his eyes – mainly to glare at her – doing it tentatively in case she decided flash bomb his retinas again.

“Okay,” she said, when he obeyed.

Sheppard squinted at her. He’d thought – maybe half hoped – that he was still muddled in the head and that when he looked at her this time, it’d be Keller. It wasn’t. This woman was brunette, first of all, and a bit older than Jennifer Keller. Her face was sharper, her skin olive. He’d never seen her before.

“How are you feeling, Colonel?” the woman asked. She put one hand out, pressed her fingers lightly against his face as she pulled down his eyelid and leaned in. Sheppard flinched, wanting to jerk away. But then her hand was gone and she extended her index finger a few inches in front of his face.

“Can you follow my finger?” she asked. “Without moving your head.”

Sheppard could. And he did, though it was actually kind of hard, and also frustrating.

“Good,” the woman said, and smiled.

Sheppard decided it was his turn to speak.

“Whass’ ere?” was what came out, so incomprehensible Sheppard wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say.

The doctor got up from her seat on a stool and vanished from his field of view. When she moved, Sheppard was able to look at his surroundings. There was an IV in his wrist, a bunch of monitors adjacent to his bedside. An oxygen canula – and another, thicker tube – was leading to his face. There was the strange weight of a catheter between his legs. He didn’t see the familiar architecture of the Atlantis infirmary. Instead, there was an earth-style medical blue curtain forming a room around him.

The woman came back with a cup of water and an emesis basin. He got to do the fairly disgusting process of swallowing or spitting, the combination of which eventually cleared his throat enough to speak.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Okay,” Sheppard said, which was mostly a lie since his head hurt, he was really confused, and he had no fucking idea what was going on.

Maybe the doctor figured it out by the way he was blinking at her, because concern suddenly creased her face. She sat back down and leaned closer to him. “Do you know where you are?”

“Um...SGC infirmary?” he guessed. Not because he had any idea, but because it was the only thing that made any sense.

The woman nodded. “That’s right.”

Sheppard opened his mouth to ask his own question, but the doctor interrupted with a bunch more.

He answered – correctly – his own name, the year, and the president’s name. The standard litany for head injuries, which jived with the fact that his skull felt like someone had taken a sledge hammer to it.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asked, next.

Sheppard shook his head, which was a mistake because it only made it hurt more. He winced. “I fell,” he said, and it seemed pretty inadequate.

“You fractured your skull,” she corrected, and he grimaced. “You’ve been in a minimally conscious state for almost two months.”

“Minimally…” Sheppard echoed, stumbling over the syllables. “That doesn’t sound good.”

The Doc launched into a spiel that under normally circumstances probably wouldn’t have made a great deal of sense. Now, it was totally impossible to understand. Sheppard caught words – bad, scary words – about brain trauma, bleeding, swelling, and surgery.

He raised the hand free of IV-leads and lightly touched his head. He felt gauze and bandages, the stubble of shaved follicles.

The woman was still talking, though Sheppard wasn’t paying attention. He’d gotten the gist.

“Ow,” he said, when she finally stopped.

She kind of smiled, put a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s good to have you back with us.”

Sheppard took another drink from the water she’d brought him. He took a deep sip, swallowed. His arms felt kind of rubbery and weak, and the doctor moved as if to guide his hand, but he could do it by himself. He let her take the cup when it was empty.

“Okay,” he said, and paused. “Um, who are you?”

The doctor looked startled, her head tilting to the side. “You don’t remember my name?” she said, sounding alarmed.

“No,” Sheppard said. He looked her in the eyes. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

The woman’s eyes were getting a little big, her face sharpening.

“When I was conscious,” he amended.

The alarmed expression stayed. “My name is Dr. Carolyn Lam,” she said, in that falsely calm tone that all doctors used when they were trying not to scare their patients.

“Nice to meet you,” Sheppard said.

“I’ve been your doctor for several years,” Lam said, then, her voice honest and frightened. “We’ve met.”

~

What happened next was a blur. Lam mostly unhooked him from all the tubing. He only kept the IV and the oxygen, for reasons he didn’t quite understand. The catheter came out – _fun_ – the thing in his nose –  _it burned like hell_ –  came out, too.

Lam made him sit up, cranking the gurney so he didn’t have a choice. This made strange, unpleasant pressures form in his head, made him clutch at his forehead.

She did a bunch of neurological tests. Ones which were vaguely familiar, since unfortunately head injuries were also kind of familiar. He thought he passed them. It was hard to tell and he was feeling very sleepy.

They put him in a wheelchair without asking. Sheppard wasn’t sure if he could have walked. His whole body felt rubbery and strange, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated.  Scarier, his thinking wasn’t much better.

Two large male nurses or orderlies lifted him out of the chair and into a big round medical machine. MRI or CT, he guessed, because no one told him.

“Brain scan,” Lam said, her voice cool and distant, filling Sheppard was instant, biting anxiety.

He almost fell asleep inside it. The interior was dim, and quiet until it activated. He could hear Lam’s voice, though, and she kept him awake by continuous questions. Simple stuff like his name, again.

It seemed like forever, but finally the machine powered off and the two orderlies extracted him and put him back in the wheelchair.

“How are you feeling?” Lam asked, taking him back to his infirmary room.

“My head hurts,” Sheppard said, honestly. “And I really don’t know who you are.”

Lam frowned. “You might be experiencing some minor memory loss,” she said. “That wouldn’t be unusual after severe head trauma.”

That wasn’t comforting at all. Sheppard let the orderlies transfer him back to the gurney and unfold his arms and legs to where they belonged.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

Lam’s eyes got bigger. “You had a head injury,” she began, tone irritatingly patronizing.

“No,” Sheppard said. “Why am I on Earth?”

The doctor sank to a seat on the stool at his bedside, reattaching his pulse ox and other monitors.

  
“Where else would you be?” she asked, more genuinely.

Sheppard turned his head away, tried to avoid the oxygen canula Lam was aiming at his face. His efforts were pointless, and resisting made his head hurt.

“Atlantis,” he said, when she retracted her hand.

Lam didn’t say anything. Her face was sharp with concern.

“What is it?” Sheppard asked.

“Can you tell me what year you think it is?” Lam replied.

“I already did,” Sheppard said. “Was I wrong?”

“No, you were correct.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Sheppard accused. “Why aren’t I on Atlantis?”

“The Atlantis mission ended four years ago,” Lam said.

~

It got crazy after that.

Sheppard demanded to know what the hell she was talking about. Lam looked at him way too calmly and reiterated ‘minor memory loss’ like that made everything okay.

“The Atlantis mission is _ongoing_ ,” he snarled.

His heart rate must have spiked, because the machine at his bedside suddenly started making noise.

“Calm down,” Lam said.

“ _No_! Tell me what’s going on!”

Lam was looking at the EKG machine with concern. “Sir,” she said. “You need to calm down.”

The curtain blocking off Sheppard’s room rustled. Both he and Lam looked up. Ford was standing in the opening.

“Just a second, Lieutenant,” Lam said.

“Maybe I can help,” Ford said, staying where he was.

On the gurney, Sheppard froze. He stared at Ford, emotions churning in his chest.

“You can see him,” he said to Lam, barely a question. The machine at his bedside continued to beep alarmingly.

Lam looked very confused. “That’s your teammate, Colonel,” she said, gently. To Ford, “Maybe you should go. He’s agitated.”

_Replicators_. That’s what was going on, Sheppard decided. Replicators fucking around in his brain. He shrank back on the gurney, suddenly feeling vulnerable as hell.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said to the thing pretending to be a doctor.

“What?” asked Lam. She had one hand up, palm facing Ford.

“Sir?” said Ford.

Sheppard’s eyes landed on a pair of scissors lying on the adjacent tray. One of the orderlies had snipped some tubing with them. He wished his arms didn’t feel like rubbery spaghetti; he didn’t trust his own body right now.

“I know what you are,” he said, voice low.

“What?” Lam regarded him. “I didn’t hear you.”

Sheppard focused on the scissors.

“Sir?” Lam said.

He didn’t answer. Sheppard lunged forward towards the tray. He grabbed the scissors by the handle, whirled, and aimed for Lam. The doctor gasped, tried to step away. She was too late. The scissors were open; one blade stabbed into the Lam’s lower arm. Sheppard saw a spurt of blood. Lam screamed and he was violently shoved away. Someone – Ford, maybe – was pinning him to the gurney and there were suddenly a lot more people in the room. Someone else forced his arm out and a needle pricked the inside of his elbow. The world blurred, and then melted away.

~

The next time Sheppard woke up, he was in four point restraints. The IV was back, in an odd position halfway up his arm since his wrist was ensconced in padded leather. He didn’t bother concealing his return to consciousness. Sheppard squirmed in place, testing the bonds. They were tight and secure; he wasn’t going anywhere. He took a deep breath, and then pointedly cleared his throat to attract attention.

Lam drifted back into his room. She had her arms crossed over her chest. He could see gauze wrapped around her arm where he’d stabbed her. There was a patch on it stained red, which didn’t mean anything.

“Colonel,” Lam said. She looked and sounded annoyed.

“Let me see it,” he ordered.

The doctor walked closer. “Excuse me?”

“The wound,” he said, jerking with his chin since he couldn’t move his hands. That made his head throb and he winced.

Lam paused, still feet away from his bedside. “What?”

“Where I stabbed you,” he said.

Total confusion filled Lam’s face. “Why?” she asked. “And _why_ did you stab me?”

“Show me,” Sheppard insisted. “Prove you’re not a Replicator.”

Abruptly, Lam walked forward. She opened a drawer in a supply chest and produced a pair of scissors – probably not the ones he’d grabbed early. Without saying a word, she snipped open the gauze, pulled it away, and thrust her arm out for him to look at. There was a swollen and pink slice of skin against the pale flesh of her arm. It was pinched together with ugly black stitches.

“Satisfied?” Lam asked.

Sheppard wasn’t. At all. He pressed his chin against his chest, hoped it passed for a nod.

“Is that what you thought?” Lam asked. She went about re-bandaging herself, surprisingly smoothly for working with one arm. The scissors went back in the chest and the drawer got locked.

He didn’t answer.

“Ford here?” he asked, instead.

Lam nodded. “I think he went to the mess. I know he didn’t leave the base.”

Sheppard hadn’t actually cared. He just wanted to hear her answer that the other man was really there.

“I can get him,” Lam said, taking a seat on the stool again.

“No,” Sheppard said. He shrugged his shoulders, twisted his arms within the restraints. “Can you take these off?”

“I don’t think so,” Lam said. “I don’t want you to forget I’m not a Replicator.”

Sheppard grimaced.

“Some disorientation is natural after the kind of head injury you experienced,” Lam said, gently. “Your wife is on her way.”

“Nancy?” asked Sheppard, bewildered.

“No,” Lam said. It was her turn to look confused. “I don’t know who that is?”

“I’ve been divorced for over ten years,” Sheppard said.

“I went to your wedding,” Lam corrected.

Dread settled heavily in Sheppard’s stomach.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said, miserably. He squirmed in the restraints. “ _Fuck_ , my head hurts.”

“ _John_?” Finally, a familiar voice. Sheppard looked to the parted curtain. Teyla was standing there in the gap. He barely had time to register that she was wearing green and black, the colors of the SGC’s BDUs. “John,” she said again, voice thick with emotion. Then she was crossing the tiny space in quick steps, leaning into the gurney and throwing her arms around his shoulders. She was pressing her forehead to his, which was okay, but then she dipped her chin down and tried to _kiss_ him.

“Uh?” Sheppard tried to jerk away, succeeding in sending another jolt of pain through his head and knocking his nose sharply against Teyla’s temple. “What the hell?”

Alarmed, Teyla jumped back. When he could see her face, her eyes were shiny but her expression was hurt. “What is wrong?” she asked. She turned toward Lam. “Why is he in restraints?”

Lam put a hand on Teyla’s arm. “I should have spoken to you alone. He’s having some memory issues. He was violent earlier.”

Teyla tilted her head. She stared at Sheppard. “Do you not remember me, John?”

“I remember you,” he said, evenly. “But I don’t remember being allowed to _kiss you_. What the hell is going on?”

~

It wasn’t Replicators. Sheppard didn’t think so, anyway. It was too chaotic and too human, too emotional and too ineffective. He also did a second test and bit an orderly that tried to adjust the canula in his nose. The guy bled _and_ got so pissed off he barely restrained himself from thumping Sheppard in the face. He saw Lam clean the wound – saw the wound _stay_.

He couldn’t think of anyone else. It wasn’t the Genii’s style. It required way too much work and a level of technology he didn’t think the Travellers had.

But the strategy was clear.

“Why don’t you tell us what you think is going on?” Lam tried.

And Teyla was sitting at his side, trying to hold his hand. That was just weird and wrong, and he couldn’t move his arm away.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think I will.” He grit his teeth together, tried not to look at Teyla’s upset face.

Head injury, bullshit. More likely they’d cut him open and poked at his brain. This was a hallucination.  They’d put something in his head to make this seem real.

“Why not?” asked Lam, rather blankly.

Teyla leaned her face into his field of vision. “You are afraid,” she said.

Sheppard would have gone with angry. “I’m not telling you _anything_ ,” he hissed.

“You think this is a trick,” Lam finally caught on.

“John,” Teyla said, leaning even closer. “I am real.” She was still holding his hand.

“Uh-huh,” Sheppard growled, sarcastically. “Sure you are.”

And that was when Ford walked through the curtain and made the situation even more hysterical.

“He doesn’t believe this is real,” Lam said softly as the man entered.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Especially _you!_ ”

Ford was standing there with his face as young as ever, clean and unscarred. Shock settled over his features, smoothed away in the next second.

“Seriously?”

“John,” Teyla said, sounding just about as sad as he’d ever heard her.

Sheppard looked away. He found Lam’s face, mostly because she only looked slightly nonplussed about the whole thing.

“It’s not going to work,” he said, fiercely. “You might as well just let me go.”

~

“You remember me, son?”

Sheppard remembered General Hank Landry. He’d known the guy during his brief stint at the SGC, and met him occasionally whenever he’d come back to Earth.

He’d never had a conversation with the guy while restrained to a gurney, though. Lam stood by the curtain, monitoring the visit. She said sending his heart skyrocketing like he kept doing was bad for the recent surgery he’d had. Sheppard didn’t believe her and he also couldn’t calm down, so fuck that. Teyla and Ford had been taken away, but not before Teyla actually started crying.

Sheppard nodded, unwilling to say anything since the half of his brain that operated on automatic was trying to stand up straight and call him ‘Sir.’ The other half wanted to scream accusations like a maniac and punch him in the face. He wondered which half his captors had messed with.

“I’m your boss,’ Landry provided when Sheppard wouldn’t answer.

Sheppard just nodded again. He had no idea what he should do, but talking to these people wasn’t high on the list. Glaring balefully and scowling were his instincts, and he was going with them.

“Dr. Lam said you’re a little unclear on things,” Landry continued.

Sheppard stayed silent.

“If you know who I am,” Landry said. “Let me tell you who _you_ are.”

He walked closer to Sheppard’s gurney. “Your name is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. You’re married to the very lovely Teyla Emmagan. You’ve worked at this facility for the past five years; she’s been here for the past three and a bit. You head a team called SG-5.”

The urge to deny it was strong, but Sheppard kept his lips together.

“That,” Landry went on, tipping his head towards Lam. “Is my beautiful daughter, Carolyn. I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t try to stab her again.”

“Replicators don’t bleed,” Sheppard spat.

“Tell him to stop biting my orderlies, too,” Lam volunteered from her position at the entryway. 

Landry raised his eyebrows. “Stop biting her orderlies,” he said.

Sheppard just glared.

“Is that what you thought?” Landry asked. “We haven’t had a Replicator problem in some time. You’re confused.”

Still, Sheppard refused to answer.

“Anything else you’d like me to clear up?” Landry said, but it was only half to Sheppard.

“He mentioned Atlantis,” Lam said. She shrugged, like it didn’t mean anything to her.

“Atlantis?” Now Landry looked surprised. He turned back to Sheppard. “That was a long time ago.”

It was _yesterday_ , but Sheppard ground his teeth together and didn’t speak. “The Atlantis mission was five years ago,” Landry said. “It was a massive failure.” He paused. “Well, you met your wife, but for our purposes it was an extremely expensive and pointless fieldtrip.”

“What?” The question escaped Sheppard’s lips without permission.

Landry looked at him, openly assessing the undisguised desperation Sheppard heard in his own voice “The mission failed,” he said. “They never found the city of the Ancients, lieutenant. The only thing the mission found were those nasty Pegasus creatures – what are they called…” he trailed off, glanced at Lam. She shrugged again. 

“Wraith,” Sheppard said. Then he slammed his teeth shut, because this was exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do. They were _tricking_ him into filling in the blanks.

“Wraith, right,” Landry said. “Space vampires.”

He looked at Sheppard, waiting for a reaction. Sheppard tried not to give him any.

“This ringing a bell?” he asked.

“No,” Sheppard growled, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

Landry paused, concern replacing the calm he’d come in with.  “Nothing?” he asked. The man glanced backwards at Lam. “What happened to him, again?”

“He hit his head on a rock,” Lam said, flatly.

Rage surged through Sheppard. He felt like he was being mocked, mocked by the fake fucking people who had captured him, tied him up, and played Dr. Mengele in his skull.

~

What made it worse was that no one was else was mad. Everyone was confused. Concerned. Awkwardly sympathetic. Not one of the avatars his captors had adopted was acting pissed off at him and his refusal to cooperate. It was sneaky, it was infuriating, and it was scary because it was designed to make him believe them.

Ford was the worst. It was like _cheating_.

Lam still hadn’t untied him and she seemed to think he still wanted to throttle her. Which was perceptive, because he did. She’d threatened to reinsert the catheter, extracting a general promise that he wouldn’t try to kick her in the face while she attended his bedpan needs. He acquiesced, mainly because he felt okay lying to her and arguing about it was humiliating.

She wouldn’t take his restraints off. It made eating hard. Here, the illusion made less sense. They were feeding him mild, bland crap. And not a lot of it. Lam said his digestive system needed to adapt to eating solid food. She said he’d been on an NG-tube for the past couple of months.

That meant he only got to eat pureed crap, evidently.

Lam fed him by spoon, careful to keep her fingers away from his teeth. He wasn’t going to bite her, but apparently there was a sign on the door warning all potential caregivers not to pet the Sheppard.

Ford was among those caretakers. He showed up with a tray at dinner time and Sheppard completely lost his appetite.

“Hey,” Ford said, as he entered.

He dropped into the stool next to Sheppard’s gurney, put the tray on the swing-topped table.

“You remember me?” he asked, voice totally earnest. “You know who I am?”

Sheppard deliberately didn’t look at his face. Using Ford – using his young, healthy, _smiling_ form –was fucking evil.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “I know you are.” He stared at the wall past Ford’s head.

Ford paused. “You don’t remember us being friends?” he guessed, after a few seconds.

“We’re friends,” Sheppard concurred, tightly. He still wouldn’t look at the other man.

“Hmm,” Ford said. “You’re acting real friendly.”

“I’m tied to a bed,’ Sheppard retorted, and his eyes shot over to look at him.

“You tried to hurt people,” Ford said, sounding totally reasonable. He _looked_ reasonable, too, like a normal thirty-year-old guy questioning why his boss – why his friend – was being mean to him.

The image messed with Sheppard’s head, as it was supposed to, of course. Sheppard went back to looking at the curtain walls and didn’t say anything.

He heard the spoon clinking against the tray.

“I’m not hungry,” Sheppard said. The thought of eating nauseated him. He wasn’t going to go along with this ruse with Ford, of all people.

The spoon continued to clink.

“Okay,” Ford said. “Doc says I should talk to you about stuff to help you remember.”

Sheppard stopped looking at the curtain, redirected his gaze to the leather restraints on his wrists. “Don’t want to talk,” he snapped.

“You don’t have to,” Ford said, breezily.

Sheppard didn’t. Ford launched into a monologue about their alleged recent adventures together on SG-5. It was all made up. Sounded like a conglomeration of various mission events in Pegasus coupled with vague stuff having to do with the SGC operations in the Milky Way. All facts they could have harvested from Sheppard’s mind, especially with how little attention he paid to stuff that happened at the SGC.

“So,” Ford was saying. “That was a fun mission. What with the snakes and all.”

Sheppard blinked at him, tried to keep his fact totally blank.

“Um, so that’s work stuff,” Ford went on. “Personally, we _are_ friends, Colonel. Even if you don’t remember. I stood up at your wedding!”

“My wedding to _Teyla_?” Sheppard snapped, incredulous.

“Yeah,” Ford said, staring at Sheppard with big eyes. “Teyla. You made her cry.”

“I’ve never seen Teyla cry,” Sheppard replied. He clicked his teeth shut, knowing he shouldn’t try to argue with these goddamn things. But he had _never_ seen Teyla cry, didn’t believe for a second that they were relying on anything more than a predictable reaction to a crying woman. Using Teyla’s form was a mistake for that.

Ford got a little mad. “She was _upset_ that her husband – who just almost died – doesn’t remember her.”

“I remember her!” Sheppard shot back, apparently throwing the not talking plan out the window since he couldn’t get himself to shut up. “What the hell is she doing here, if this is Earth, huh? The Milky Way? If the Atlantis mission never happened? Nice try, but she’s in the wrong galaxy!”

Ford’s eyebrows shot up. He leaned back, almost wobbling on the stool.

“You really don’t remember?”

Sheppard scowled.

“We brought her back with us,” Ford said. “From Pegasus.”

That was the stupidest thing Sheppard had ever heard. He shut his eyes, pressed his head back against the pillow.

~

Sam Carter showed up next. She had much shorter hair than she should have, which was kind of weird. She also wasn’t a full bird colonel. The thing mining data in his head must have been a little out of date.

She came with breakfast: a glass of orange juice and some goopy oatmeal.

“Hi,” she said when she entered, in the same bright yet hesitant way that everyone greeted him.

“Hey,” Sheppard answered, grumpily because this was already getting really old and he was getting more and more pissed off about being tied to a bed with fucking bedpan service.  When Carter paused, he spoke first. “Yes, I know who you are,” he said.

Carter sat down, put the breakfast tray on his table. “But you don’t believe I’m real?” she asked. Cutting to the chase was kind of nice.

“I’m having some doubts.”

Carter nodded. “Think this is an alien illusion? Hallucination?”

“Those are good options,” Sheppard agreed. He shifted in bed as Carter tilted her head to the side and almost smiled.

“Well,” she said. “Unfortunately, I understand why you might be inclined to think that.” She smiled wider. “But it’s not.”

Sheppard scowled at her.

“Right,” she said. “Want some oatmeal?”

“No,” he said, since he didn’t and even if he did he wouldn’t want it spoon fed to him like an infant.

“Okay,” Carter said. But she was playing idly with spoon, sticking it in the oatmeal and swirling it around.

“Teyla’s really upset,” she said, almost casually.

“Yeah?” Sheppard asked. He tried very hard not to care. “She okay?”

“She’s tough,” Carter said. “You know that.”

“She could come back,” Sheppard muttered.

“I think everyone decided that based on the way you reacted that that might not be such a great idea,” Carter replied, evenly.

“I don’t think any of this is a great idea,” Sheppard retorted.

Carter looked taken aback. She forced a smile on her face.

“I’m supposed to help you remember,” she said, changing the subject. “But I’m really not sure what to say.”

“You could take my restraints off,” Sheppard suggested. “That would help.”

“I don’t think so,” Carter laughed.

And then she started talking. She said a lot of the same crap Ford had. Their stories were straight, at least. He headed SG-5. Carter wasn’t on it – she was still on SG-1 – but apparently they worked together in the form of mutual rescues from alien baddies from time to time. It sounded believable, of course. Carter had that seasoned note of experience in her voice, the one that made even preposterous situations seem utterly normal and even kind of funny. It was the way she always talked, basically photocopied from his memories with the details changed.

Well, she was a little more relaxed. A little less formal. Maybe because she wasn’t his boss in this illusion.

Carter studied his face.

“You don’t believe me,” she said, flatly. “You don’t think any of this is real.”

~

     Cameron Mitchell was next. It was a strange choice, since the guy wasn’t high on Sheppard’s list of…people he expected to show up and try to convince him it was all real. He’d expected McKay or Lorne, first.

“Hey,” Mitchell said jovially, as he entered. He had lunch, of course, a dish covered in plastic on a tray that went on its usual spot on Sheppard’s table.

Sheppard grunted more than answered.

“Lunchtime,” Mitchell said, still cheerful.

“No thanks,” snapped Sheppard.

Mitchell settled himself on the visitor’s stool.  “Lam said you don’t eat it, she’s putting your NG-tube back in,” he warned.

Sheppard frowned. He’d refused his past three meals, after putting up with one spoon-feeding session from Lam.

“Yeah?”

“Yep.”

“What is it?”

Mitchell lifted the plastic covering of the plate. “Um.” He made a face. “Looks like…boiled chicken and rice?”

“Sounds delicious,” Sheppard muttered.

But Mitchell was reaching out and undoing the restraint around Sheppard’s right wrist.

“You’re untying me?” he asked, skeptically.

“You look pissed,” Mitchell said, releasing the belt and moving to Sheppard’s other arm. “Also, if you try anything, I think I can take you.”

Sheppard scowled. “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.” Mitchell shoved a plastic utensil between Sheppard’s fingers. “All the same, please don’t try to spork me to death.”

He looked down; it was indeed a spork.

“Lam just sewed your melon back up,” Mitchell continued. “I’d hate to split it open again.”

That made Sheppard scowl again. But he wrapped his fingers around the spork and reached for the tray.

“NG-tubes suck,” he said, in case Mitchell though he was cooperating for any other reason.

“Yup,” Mitchell said, but he was grinning like he’d just tricked Sheppard into something.

The boiled chicken was bland and rubbery. But Sheppard’s stomach actually growled at the first bite and he dug in.

“So,” Mitchell drawled as Sheppard stuffed his face. “You remember me?”

“Hrmf,” Sheppard said, with his mouth full.

Mitchell interpreted the noise correctly, dipping his head in understanding.

“Well,” he said. “It’s good to have you up and awake. Even if you’re being an ass to everyone. Especially your wife.”

It was hard to scowl around a mouthful of shitty chicken.

“You and I,”  Mitchell continued. “are friends, in case you didn’t know.”

Sheppard swallowed. “Bring me a hamburger and I might be convinced.”

Mitchell smirked until it grew into a grin.

It felt…okay, it felt really fucking weird. The man’s presence was easy and friendly. More natural than it should be, since Sheppard could count the number of times they’d met on two hands.

“You’re really missing some time, huh?” Mitchell asked, then, with the gentle casualness of a guy trying for sensitive.

It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, and then hesitated because he really shouldn’t say anything. “Looks like a couple of years.”

Mitchell waited a few seconds.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.

Sheppard frowned. “Nothing that makes any sense to anyone,” he settled on, unwilling to reveal anything but satisfying the stupid urge he had to confide in this guy.

Mitchell nodded, shocked Sheppard by not pushing. “It’ll come back.”

Sheppard didn’t want it to _come back_. He wanted to _go back._ He wanted to close his eyes and wake up in the Atlantis infirmary.

“Who’s next?” was all Sheppard said.

“Huh?”

“Who’s bringing me dinner?”

~

It was Major Evan Lorne, it turned out.  He didn’t bring a hamburger, said he’d sneak a decent one in from the outside.

“I don’t think the ones in the mess are actually made from cow,” he said, apologetically, as he took a seat on the stool and dropped a tray with a plate of something white and green on Sheppard’s table.

It was so close to what the real Lorne said while bitching about the lack of beef in hamburgers in the Atlantis cafeteria that Sheppard froze for a second.

After Mitchell had left, Sheppard had used his freed hands to undo the straps on his ankles. But he stayed on the gurney, behaved himself nicely enough that when Lam showed up to check on him she was surprised to find him untied. They reached an accord where, provided he didn’t attack anyone, he was allowed to get up and use the bathroom like a big boy.

Sheppard didn’t think it was worth trying to escape. He was pretty sure there was an airman guarding his room, even if he could move around now. If not an airman then a fucking alien or something. And he didn’t feel particularly up to making a break for it. His head still hurt. Constantly, like a background, thrumming pain. He wasn’t sure escaping the infirmary had any point, anyway.

Lorne was Lorne. He was the same friendly, respectful guy. It was more awkward than with Mitchell, though. Maybe because whatever force was simulating this reality didn’t know Lorne, like it didn’t know Ford. It was close enough to feel almost right and yet be so weird at the same time. He liked Lorne, but ninety-percent of his interactions with the guy involved getting sniped at for not doing his paperwork or for ordering or tricking Lorne into doing it for him. There was none of that teasing frustration at his bedside. Maybe that was why it felt weird.

He’d brought Sheppard buttered spaghetti with peas, which was really totally disgusting. And he was apparently supposed to eat it with another spork.

Lorne was sitting there kind of awkwardly, like he knew he was supposed to say stuff and he didn’t know how.

“How are you feeling, sir?” he settled on, eventually, after just enough time had passed for it to sound even more awkward.

“Like a Mack truck ran over my head,” Sheppard answered, honestly.

Lorne made a noise, half of acknowledgment and half of surprise.

“I look like Frankenstein, don’t I?” Sheppard said, when Lorne didn’t come up with anything to say in response.

“Little bit, sir,” Lorne admitted, nodding his head. “But it looks better than before.”

“Before?”

“Yeah.” Lorne looked at him. “When it was all…bleeding.”

“You were there when that happened?” Sheppard asked.

Confusion filled Lorne’s face. He paused, then spoke: “Yes, sir. I was. I’m, um, on your team. We were all there.”

“You’re on my team?” Sheppard asked. He watched as Lorne’s forehead creased.

“Yes, sir.”

“You, Ford, and…” Sheppard prompted.

Lorne just blinked at him.

“Teyla?” Sheppard guessed. .

“Uh? No,” Lorne said, quickly. “That wouldn’t be appropriate. Uh, we have an anthropologist named Lucy Hurst.”

“I have no idea who that is,” Sheppard said. He didn’t. It was the first thing in this whole scenario that was completely new.

“She’s been here a while,” Lorne said, incredibly awkwardly. “She’s nice. We make lots of I Love Lucy jokes about her.”

Sheppard ignored him. “Tell me about Atlantis,” he said, instead. Lorne hesitated for a second. “You were there, right?” Sheppard prompted.

“Um, no.” Lorne’s face twisted.

For a second, Sheppard stared. And then he realized, of course, that Lorne had arrived a year or so into the mission. He’d just forgotten that these people thought the mission hadn’t lasted that long.

Lorne didn’t call him on his confusion. He shifted on the stool. “But I know some stuff,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Just talk,” Sheppard said. He wasn’t going to lead.

“Okay.” He paused. “They…you never found the city, sir. There was no Atlantis.”

Sheppard kept his teeth together to avoid spitting out a denial. “Go on,” he ordered.

“Um.” Lorne searched for words.

“We went through the ‘Gate,” Sheppard prompted. “Where did we come out?”

“Oh, okay.” Lorne nodded, glad to have a place to start. “You came out of a ‘Gate in the middle of nowhere.”

“Nowhere?” Sheppard demanded.

“It was a desert,” Lorne said. He shrugged. “This was a really long time ago, sir. You don’t talk about it a lot. You said the weather was shit. It wasn’t safe to stay there. Radiation or something? There was no city. Just a ‘Gate.”

“A desert?”

“Yeah. Sand, wind, hot as hell.” Lorne shook his head. “Like Afghanistan, you said.”

“Keep going.”

“The mission left ASAP,” Lorne continued. “Dialed the ‘Gate at random to find some place safer.”

“Okay.”

“That’s how they met the Athosians.” Lorne let out a bitter laugh. “And then, immediately after that, met the Wraith.” He paused. “You don’t remember any of this?”

“Not like that,” Sheppard allowed. “Go on.”

“The Wraith attacked,” Lorne said. “They fought back, you know, but no one had any idea what they were dealing with.” He swiveled in place on the stool. “Teyla told us later they don’t like it when you do that, funnily enough.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard muttered.

“It got way out of hand,” Lorne continued. “The civilians were sent to hide in the caves and eventually the military had to retreat, too. We lost a lot of people.”

Sheppard nodded. Minus the part where they were pretending Atlantis didn’t exist, that sounded very familiar.

“And the Athosians,” Lorne said, softer. “Were wiped out.”

“What?” Sheppard sat up abruptly.

“Except for Teyla,” he said. “It was a clusterfuck. Sumner tried to move them out in the open…” Lorne frowned. “If you don’t remember, you should read the report.”

“Get it for me,” Sheppard said, “and I will.”

“Okay,” Lorne said. “I’ll do that.”

~

After Lorne left, Sheppard felt strange. Awful, actually. A cold pit formed in his stomach. He tried to remember that this wasn’t real. That some alien techno-probe was scanning his memories. But using those first few days in Atlantis – using them _and_ making them even worse – really bothered him. And for that, it was brutally effective if the intention was to remind him of how rough and traumatic the beginning had been. But he didn’t understand that as a goal of interrogation.

A short time later, outside the curtain drawn around his bedside, Sheppard saw a slender shadow move up to the big bulk that was probably the airman guarding him. He looked at the figure for a while; the person was just standing outside, not trying to enter. It was clearly a woman, and not Lam.

“Teyla?” he called.

He was right. Her dark little hands parted the curtain and then she slipped inside.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, trying not sound weird. It probably didn’t work.

Teyla was wearing jeans and a plain blue t-shirt. _Jeans_. He’d never seen her in those before. She looked drawn in the face and her movements were hesitant.

“Hello, John,” she said, softly. She walked towards the stool but didn’t sit down. “How are you?” It was a stiff, awkward question.

“The same,” he said, honestly. He wiggled his wrists. “Untied.”

Teyla nodded and forced a smile. “Good,” she said. But she sounded miserable. She _looked_ miserable _._

“You still do not remember?” she asked, keeping her voice mild.

Sheppard shook his head. “No,” he said.  “I’m sorry.” The apology escaped his lips involuntarily. Using Teyla was also cheating. Using a Teyla that looked horribly betrayed and sad was just mean.

“You were badly injured,” Teyla said, gently, forgivingly. She reached out a hand like she was going to stroke him, then abruptly jerked her hand back as if just realizing the gesture wouldn’t be welcome. “Your friends have told me they are trying to help you remember.”

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t tell her it wasn’t helping. At all. “Lorne told me about the Athosians, Teyla. I’m really sorry.”

Confusion drifted over her face. Eventually, she nodded. “That was a long time ago,” she said, finally.

“Yeah,” he said. “But your people. That’s terrible.”

Teyla put her hand up to her face, smoothed her hair back.

“You do not remember anything?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Not what people keep telling me happened.” The urge to be honest with Teyla was stupidly strong.

Unfortunately, Teyla picked up on what he wasn’t saying. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” he said, quickly. “The past five years…I don’t have any of it.” And that was a lie, and Teyla was looking at him like she knew it.

“But you know who I am,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. Sheppard knew he shouldn’t tell her shit. She was the perfect ruse. When she looked that unhappy, all he wanted to do was fix it. “I hit my head really hard,” he forced himself to say.

Unfortunately, Teyla wasn’t buying it.

“Sam says you believe this is an alien hallucination.”

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Sheppard replied. And then he felt guilty, because she frowned and looked down.

“To what purpose?” she asked.

“To trick me into compromising the security of the city,” Sheppard answered, reasonably. Because it _was_ reasonable and it was the only thing that made any sense right now.

Teyla blinked at him. “What city?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”

“Hmm.” Teyla  dropped her hands and again reached for him. She deliberately stopped herself and folded her fingers around the railing of his gurney. “I will not ask you any questions like that, then,” she said. “Does that help?”

He wanted to believe her. Not because he wanted this to be real, but because she was Teyla, or at least looked, talked, and acted exactly like Teyla.

“It can’t hurt,” he said.

She dipped her head, accepting if not enormously pleased with that answer. “May I sit with you?” she asked.

Sheppard shrugged. He tipped his head toward the stool. “Okay.”

Teyla settled herself down, crossed her legs.

“You been hanging around outside the whole time?” Sheppard asked.

“Some,” Teyla admitted. “I went off-world yesterday. My presence was needed and I was advised it would take my mind off…” she paused. “You. It did not work very well.”

“Off-world?”

“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate until he blinked at her in total confusion. “I work with SG-13,” she said, realizing that he, in fact, didn’t know. “We were concluding trade relations.”

“Oh.”

That didn’t really make much sense. Teyla was a Pegasus native; the Milky Way was pretty damn different from her galaxy. And he tried to imagine the IOA bigwigs approving the mission bringing back a Pegasus alien in the first place, let alone assigning her to a SG team.

She was watching him, maybe realizing he was trying to assess just what the hell was going on.

“Lorne’s going to get me the reports,” he offered. “So I know what I missed.”

“Good,” Teyla said, trying to sound upbeat. “That will help.”

She stayed for a little while after that. Not really talking, just sitting there. It was both comfortable and not. He could feel that she wanted to speak, maybe wanted to question him, too, but didn’t want to scare him.

Eventually, he offered her an out.

“I’m kind of tired,” he said.

Quickly, Teyla rose. “I will let you rest,” she said. “And come back tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he agreed.

She leaned down, and he almost jerked away because he thought she was going for a kiss. But Teyla just lightly brushed her forehead against his, straightened back up, and walked away.

 

~


	2. The Undone Years 2/7

Sheppard decided not to think about Teyla. It was easier that way. He also wasn’t going to think about Ford. Sheppard went and took a shower, instead. The infirmary showers were designed for the medical staff, mostly, since patients were expected to get the sponge bath variety. No way in hell was he consenting to that. Lam said he could get his head wet, but the water pressure might hurt. She was right about that. The showerhead spray stung like hell, even when he adjusted it to the lightest setting. Standing up that long was also kind of hard, and he was well aware he was sort of stumbling rather than walking. He really couldn’t run away even if he wanted to.  

Afterwards, he wrapped himself in a scratchy, thin towel and leaned against the wall just outside the shower stall, being pissed that the simple act of showering was now somehow exhausting. He was also pissed that while someone had taken away the patient gown he’d been wearing, they’d left a new, clean one. Sheppard wanted to wear pants.  

He rifled around the shower area, eventually finding someone’s sweatpants balled up in the corner underneath a pile of clean towels. They smelled like detergent – maybe accidentally mixed in with the laundry – so Sheppard decided to steal them. The original owner was shorter than him, so the pant legs hit him awkwardly just above the ankle, but it was still better than an ass-baring gown.  

Sheppard looked at himself in the mirror. His head was hideous – most of his hair gone and rows of tiny black thread sewn jaggedly here and there. There was some stubble as it grew back, but he really did look Frankenstein. His body looked thinner and flabbier, muscle tone lost. And it was kind of bizarre to look at his hairy chest in the mirror when his head was mostly bald.  

It was a little surprising to be left alone as he did this. He guessed as long as he didn’t try to stab anyone or leave the infirmary, he was allowed to move around a little. Where this figured in getting him to divulge information about Atlantis, he didn’t know. Sure he looked like a pathetic, injured victim, but that wasn’t going to make him spill his guts. It mostly just pissed him off.  

Worn out, Sheppard wandered back to his little curtain area. He noticed the airman outside was gone, which was a little odd.  It must have been a shift change. He again considered trying to get out of the infirmary, decided the way he felt a hundred pound nurse could have captured him. Instead, he climbed back on to the gurney and stretched out.  

He was half asleep within minutes, only jerked awake when he heard the curtain jingle on its rod. Sheppard opened one eye, saw the slender figure of a woman outlined against the blue curtain. It wasn’t Lam or Teyla, he could tell, so he decided it was a nurse and he could go back to sleep. Shutting his eye, he heard the hooks jangle again, but ignored it.  

Sheppard couldn’t ignore it when a warm, solid weight slammed down on his hips. For some bizarre reason, the woman had entered his room, jumped on to his gurney, and was _straddling_ him. His eyes flew open, hands flying up to try to push her off. The first thing that filled his vision was an enormous, toothy grin. The woman sitting on him was smiling her head off. He recognized her immediately, mostly because the options for sexually aggressive crazy-ass women was really short.  

“Hello, darling,” Vala Mal Doran said, leaning over him and still smiling widely.  

Sheppard squinted up at her. He put his hands on her hips, tried to shove. It did absolutely nothing to dislodge her. And damn, for a slender woman she was _heavy._  

“Off,” he grunted.  

“Now, now,” Vala said. She pressed her palms against his bare chest. “You may not remember me, so I thought I’d remind you.” 

“I know who you are,” he said. “Now _move_!” 

She was toying with his chest hair between her fingers. “No no,” she tsked. “You _like_ it when I do this.” 

“I do not,” Sheppard snapped.  

Vala ran her hands up then back down his shoulders. “You’re untied, now, though. _Pity_.” 

He took his hands off her hips, shoved pathetically at her shoulders – trying to avoid her breasts as he did so – and discovered he really couldn’t move her at all. That was disheartening.  

“Get off!” 

Vala made a face, for a second actually looking sincerely hurt. And then he froze, because _what the fuck_? 

“We’re lovers,” she said, sweetly, and then grinned in a way that immediately invalidated that sentence. “Don’t you remember?” 

Giving up, Sheppard dropped his hands flat on the gurney. If he remembered correctly, Vala most liked to play when she had an enraged partner. “I’m married to Teyla,” he said. “So they tell me.” 

“Well, yes,” Vala admitted. “But I’m your mistress!” 

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Aren’t you and Jackson – ” 

“Daniel doesn’t appreciate me. He’s no fun,” Vala interrupted. At least she’d stopped playing with his chest hair. “You and I have a special connection.” 

“Uh-huh,” he muttered. “Can I tell Teyla about our special connection?” 

“No!” Vala said, sharply. “She wouldn’t understand and her fists are unpleasantly strong. Your wife is _mean_.” 

“Vala, what the hell are you doing?” That was the other half of the duo, Daniel Jackson standing in the opening of the curtain holding a dinner tray.  

Vala turned her head towards the man. “I’m helping him remember,” she said, lightly.  

“Get her off!” Sheppard demanded.  

But Vala scrambled off on her own accord as Jackson entered and put the tray on Sheppard’s table.  

“I was helping,” she repeated, crossing her arms.  

“I bet you were,” Jackson said, sarcastically. “Get out of here.” 

Vala glanced at Sheppard. “See,” she hissed. “No fun.” 

“You could have hurt him,” Jackson snapped. “He’s _injured_.” 

“I wasn’t sitting on his _head_ ,” she retorted, then paused. “Although…” 

“Out!” yelled Jackson. Sheppard agreed emphatically.  

She did leave, sauntering the whole time and easily dodging Jackson’s attempt to kick her in the ass as she went by him.  

Sheppard exhaled loudly, glaring at her departing form.  

“Sorry,” Jackson apologized, when she was gone.  

Sheppard grunted. “What the hell was that?” 

Jackson looked at him. “I think,” he said, “she was genuinely trying to help.”

 “ _What_?” 

“She, um, does do that to you, a lot,” Jackson said. “The, um, molesting and inappropriate touching. Doesn’t ring a bell?” 

“No,” Sheppard snarled. “I remember her doing that _to you_.” 

“Oh,” Jackson said. “Well, it loses appeal when she’s allowed to do it.” 

The only reasonable response to that was grunting, so Sheppard did it again.  

“Um, I brought dinner,” Jackson said, shoving the tray over. “Meatloaf.” 

“ _Fabulous_.” 

Jackson sat down on the stool while Sheppard examined the tray. It looked disgusting, but this time they trusted him with an actual fork, even if it was plastic. Sighing, Sheppard dug in.  

Surprisingly, his dinner guest didn’t want to talk to him like all his previous ones. Jackson whipped out an old, dusty-looking leather bound book from somewhere and buried his face in it while Sheppard ate.  

That was weird.  

“You don’t want to try to help me remember?” Sheppard asked, with his mouth full. Jackson glanced up, cocking an eyebrow like Sheppard had just asked him to start straddling and molesting, like Vala. “ _Talking_ , I mean,” Sheppard amended.  

“No,” Jackson said. “Well, I mean, you should know that anything Vala said is probably totally untrue.” 

“I know that.” 

Jackson shrugged. “I will if you want, but I figured you might want a break.” 

“Oh,” Sheppard said. “Okay.” 

And a break was okay, kind of nice, even if the meatloaf tasted like a roasted shoe.  

~ 

The next day, Teyla showed up for a really awkward, really silent breakfast. She brought some fruit in addition to the crappy oatmeal, which he appreciated. But she still looked sad and stressed out, and he knew it was because of him, so he mostly kept his mouth stuffed full of food so he wouldn’t have to say anything.  

It wasn’t very mature, but he also couldn’t think what he should say.  

Teyla did her very best to keep conversation up with a monologue about stuff that had happened around the SGC since his injury. Since he didn’t remember ever being at the SGC, this only accounted for the past two months or so. 

Apparently, she was on a basketball team with Vala and Teal’c. He would admit he wasn’t paying close attention until she dropped that sentence.  

“What?” he said. “Basketball?” 

Teyla gave a little smile. “Daniel calls it the Off-Worlder Basketball Team. We are two short, though. You and Cameron are allowed to play with us anyway.” 

“Basketball,” Sheppard repeated. It really felt like someone had stuck chopsticks in his ears and swirled them around. That’s how much sense this made.  

“Daniel is not very good,” Teyla said, “We did better with you.” 

And that would have been a blatant ego stroke, if Sheppard had any idea what she was talking about. He couldn’t imagine ever playing on a freaking SGC intramural basketball team. He didn’t even like basketball. That went for team sports in general.  

“Oh,” he said. “Huh. Um, Vala was here, yesterday.”  

“What did she do?” Teyla asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.  

“Oh, what she probably usually does,” said Sheppard. “She didn’t want to play basketball.” 

Teyla just smiled. “She has missed you,” she said. 

“Funny way of showing it,” Sheppard muttered. He squinted at her. “You guys are really friends.” 

“We are,” Teyla said, sincerely. “She has been a great comfort to me after you were injured.” 

“Really?” 

Teyla nodded. And she didn’t look particularly pleased that he didn’t believe her, so Sheppard decided to drop it.  

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be nicer to her next time.” 

Teyla’s lips pursed a little. “You do not have to be _too_ nice,” she said, and Sheppard cracked a grin.  “Teal’c is off-world with his people, but I am sure he will be relieved that you have recovered.” 

Sheppard wasn’t sure he’d describe himself as recovered, but it wasn’t worth mentioning. Instead, he brought up another visitor he hadn’t yet had.  

“Hey, Teyla,” he said. She leaned closer, eyes lighting up hopefully. He felt bad that he probably wasn’t going to say anything she wanted to hear. “Is Rodney McKay around?” 

Teyla’s face did drop, but only a little. She leaned back. “I am not sure who that is,” she said.

   
“McKay,” he repeated. “Rodney.” 

“That name is not familiar to me,” Teyla said, hesitantly.  

“He was on the Atlantis mission,” Sheppard tried. “Trust me, he’s memorable. Um…really loud? Never shuts the hell up. He’s a scientist, um, allergic to lemons and you’d know that because he tells everyone, really smart…” 

Teyla shook her head. “The Atlantis mission was some time ago,” she said, gently. “And there were many people. I did not meet all of them.” 

“McKay works for the SGC,” Sheppard said. “He worked here before I knew it existed!” 

“Perhaps you should ask someone else,” Teyla said. Her voice was calm, but he could read the distress in her face, probably because she thought he was delusional.  

“Okay,” Sheppard said. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll do that.” 

But now he was alarmed and she was upset, and breakfast was ruined.  

“Doctor Lam says you start physical therapy today,” Teyla said, trying to change the subject. 

“Why?” he said.  

“You’ve been in bed a long time,” she answered. “She said you need to regain your strength. 

~ 

Dr. Jennifer Keller arrived after Teyla left.  For a split second, even though he was still in the SGC infirmary, which looked nothing like the Atlantis one, Sheppard hoped that he would blink and it would melt away and he would back where he belonged. But it didn’t. The curtains stayed, the walls stayed, the mundane Earth equipment stayed. Keller said she was there to start his physical therapy and she looked a little confused when he said her name so excitedly.  

“Physical therapy,” he echoed.  

“Yep.” She smiled. “You’ve been sedentary for a long time. I’ve been working with you a little while you’ve been here, but now you can actually participate.” 

“Participate?” 

She turned out to have a bunch of tasks for him. Stupid, demeaning, pointless tasks that were allegedly supposed to both strengthen his unused muscles and practice things like hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity in case there were any undiscovered neurological hitches or something. Dumb things like pouring water back and forth between two cups, counting out beans, and stacking blocks. Seriously, it was like being a kindergartner. He would have been madder if those tasks were easy, except they _weren’t._ And that pissed him off, too, not at her, but at his stupid, lazy body that had forgotten how to do the simplest movements.  

Keller also had weights to strap to his arms and legs so he could exercise in bed, which pissed him off, too, even though he was fairly sure that he couldn’t run anywhere and that walking for a long time was probably not going to work either. She said stretching was important in addition to the lifting, suggested stupid, boring yoga-like positions to get started.  

“What were you doing before I could participate?” Sheppard asked, glaring at the paperwork she’d given him showing a drawing of a healthy looking dude with hair bending a knee up against his chest.  

“Mostly low-impact exercises,” Keller said, brightly. “Avoiding bed sores, a little stretching, preventing severe muscle atrophy.” He scowled and Keller patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll take a little while but you’ll be back to normal.” 

He didn’t think so. He didn’t think so at all, and he wasn’t talking about his rubbery knees or clumsy fingers.  

“Did you talk to me?” he asked. “While I was out?” 

Keller gave a little smile. “Yes,” she said. “I tend to do that. Why, do you remember?” 

“No,” Sheppard said. And he didn’t. 

“Oh.” Keller’s smile dropped.  

It was easy to imagine someone claiming that Keller’s voice had penetrated his mind while she’d interacted with his semi-conscious body, that he’d invented everything having to do with her on Atlantis. He didn’t believe it. But he could see how someone would.  

“You weren’t on the Atlantis mission,” he said. She’d come later, he thought. Not with the original crew.  

“What?” Keller looked a little confused. “God, no,” she said. “That sounded terrifying. We didn’t know if the crew’d ever come back. I couldn’t do that to my parents.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t do that to me, I’m a big ol’ chicken.”  

“Okay,” Sheppard said.  

“Why?” she asked, looking curious.  

“No reason,” he lied, and wouldn’t look at her.  

“Alright,” she said, cheerfully. “Want to do some leg lifts?” 

Sheppard cooperated. It was hard, ridiculously hard for a 2.5 pound weight strapped to his ankle. The reps soaked him with sweat, got him out of breath almost immediately. Keller didn’t act like it was a big deal, though. She gave him water and encouraged him, even though he didn’t want or need a cheerleader and this was embarrassing enough as it was. He wiped his face with a towel she gave him, realized the motion was dangerously close to wiping his eyes. He blinked a couple of times, made sure he wasn’t crying. There was no reason to, none at all.  

~ 

Sheppard’s brilliant plan not to tell these people anything wasn’t all that subtle. At some point, everyone he’d interrogated about the Atlantis mission must have gotten together with everyone who’d realized that Sheppard was more often that not completely clueless when they mentioned something that they claimed had happened in the past five years.  Evidently, this made him look crazy. Or ‘neurologically impaired’.  But mostly crazy.  

Lam sat down opposite his bed and very firmly explained that in order to coordinate his medical care, she needed to know exactly what was going on in his head. It was very different from aggressive, intimidating captors demanding he reveal everything about Atlantis and threatening him. Sheppard honestly would have preferred that. He was fairly sure Lam wanted to know he was having those kind of thoughts, too, but didn’t feel like telling her.  

He was sort of honest.  

“The past five years,” he said. “I don’t remember them.” Lam tilted her head, and wrote something down on the clipboard that contained his chart. “I don’t remember what everyone else says I should remember. At all.” 

“Okay,” Lam said, trying for neutral but hitting startled instead.  

“I remember the Atlantis Mission,” he said. “But I remember it going…differently.” 

“And you don’t want me to ask how,” Lam said, “Because you think this might all be a trick to force you to reveal something you shouldn’t to an alien enemy?” 

“Yeah.” Sheppard crossed his arms defiantly and tried not to feel ridiculous. “That’s about right.” 

“Okay,” Lam said, surprisingly agreeable. She wrote something else on his chart.  

He peered at her, tried to read her scribble upside down.  

“What’d you say about me?” he asked.  

“Post-traumatic Amnesia,” Lam said. She turned the clipboard around so he could look.  

“From hitting my head.” She nodded. “And that wiped out five years?” 

“It’s unusual,” she said, “but not unheard of.” 

“What about the stuff I do remember?” Sheppard asked. “The stuff no one else remembers happening.”

“Disassociative fugue,” Lam said, totally calm. “Formation of alternate memories in the aftermath of head trauma isn’t unheard of, either. It’s usually a temporary state.” 

Sheppard was kind of pissed at her for being so casual. “Yeah?” he said.  

“Yeah,” Lam said, crisply. “But you need to be honest with us about how much you remember and any progress you make. Since you’re paranoid, I’m not going to let my staff ask you about it, but you need to be honest.”

  “I’m not paranoid,” Sheppard snapped. “It’s a legitimate threat in this line of business.” 

“I know.” She didn’t sound very sympathetic “But it’s very problematic from my angle.” He scowled. “Do we have a deal?”

 “Deal?” 

“I don’t ask you anything you find compromising, you don’t lie to me and my staff?” 

It made him want to scowl even harder. “Yeah,” he said.  

~ 

His next visitor wasn’t someone he didn’t know. Lucy Hurst, the anthropologist on SG-5. The anthropologist on his team, the team he had zero memory of. He’d never seen the woman before in his life.  

Sheppard didn’t know who or what he’d expected. Maybe that’d it be someone in a form he’d recognize – Weir or Heightmeyer or Larrin or _someone_. A female version of Ronon. 

It was just some woman; she had red curly hair and a North Carolina accent. He didn’t recognize her, stared at her blankly ‘til she introduced herself. She knew him, greeting him with effusive fondness and going so far as to try and hug him. The hugging thing would have annoyed him even if he did know who she was, which might have been why she didn’t realize that he staring at her in total confusion for a good five minutes.  

“Evan said you remembered people,” she said, when she finally noticed the bafflement on his face. “But not events?” 

“I don’t remember the past five years,” he said, bluntly.  

“Oh,” she said, startled. “Well, I’m Lucy.” 

“You said that, already.” He knew that wasn’t a friendly answer, but he didn’t particularly care. A stranger rang alarm bells. A pretty, female stranger was a classic bait and switch.  

He ended up being unfriendly enough that Hurst stayed for a little more one-sided small talk and then made to leave. She had brought with her piles and piles of mission reports, though, as promised to him from Lorne.  

“Thanks,” he said, when she pointed to the piles of manila folders on the floor next to the curtain. “And can you tell Colonel Carter I want to speak to her?” 

~ 

“Rodney McKay?” Carter asked. She looked confused. “I haven’t thought about him in years. I’m not sure where he’s at now.” 

“He’s not with the SGC anymore?” Sheppard asked, shocked. 

“No,” Carter said. “He um, didn’t enjoy the Atlantis trip. I could hear him, er, ‘quitting’ from several stories away the day you guys got back.” 

“Rodney _quit_?”  

“Yeah.” Carter nodded. “Pretty emphatically, if I recall. I know he moved to the private sector for a while.” Her eyebrows creased, thinking. “Actually, I know he recently went abroad. There was a lot of controversy given his knowledge of classified material.” 

“Huh?” 

“He was working for a foreign agency,” Carter said. “Russian, I think. Maybe.” She looked at the expression on Sheppard’s face. “I can try to put you in touch with him, if you want.” Her own face said she couldn’t possibly imagine why he’d want that.  

“Thanks,” he said.  

~  

The mission reports that the Hurst lady had brought weren’t very helpful. They weren’t about Atlantis. Just typical SG reports. Sheppard believed he’d written some of them, maybe. It was his style, anyway, but then again all SG reports were more or less the same. His were shorter and dryer than a few others.   

He didn’t remember any of what he’d allegedly wrote. It was all kind of normal, at least as mission reports went. Lots of boring stuff, a little bit of exciting stuff, entirely too much crazy shit.  

And it all took place in the Milky Way. Some of it could have happened in Pegasus, he guessed. A lot of the issue with village natives ended up being the same. Stupid superstitions, the occasional hilarious cultural misunderstanding, the far more common equally hilarious incidents involving betrayal, capture, and escape. But no Wraith. No Atlantis. No Teyla, no Ronon, no McKay.  

But it hadn’t happened to him. He remembered none of this. It was written in his voice with his name on it. That was all.  

Sheppard found one report mentioning an arrow wound to the thigh. His thigh. Curiously, he shoved down his stolen sweat pants and examined himself. He felt kind of stupid – mostly because if a doctor or a nurse walked in on him it’d probably look like he was jerking off – looking for the scar of an event that had likely never happened.  

But there it was. On his left thigh towards the inside of his leg, a round and pink indented blemish. And a matching one on the back of the thigh, which must have been the exit wound. Sheppard poked at it, but it didn’t hurt at all. It was just…there.  

He jerked out of the gurney with a franticness that came on so suddenly it almost frightened him. Sheppard yanked down the pants all the way, kicked them off. He ripped off the pulse-ox Lam had asked him to continue to wear and ignored the immediate, blaring alarm.  

Naked, Sheppard staggered – staggered because he was trying to move too fast and his body just wasn’t up to it – to the bathroom.  

Before, when he’d looked at himself in the mirror, he’d been too distracted to search for scars. He’d only seen himself, focused on how sick, thin, and weak he looked.  

But now he searched. Looked for the jagged line on his belly from the goddamn beam that had pinned – _penetrated_ – him in Michael’s goddamn lab when the building collapsed.  

It wasn’t there.  

 _None_ of them were there.  

It was like a magic wand had been waved over his skin, like all those stupid creams and gels that Carson and then Keller had given him for scar reduction had actually worked perfectly. Except that he’d never used them, because they actually didn’t work, because he was lazy, because he didn’t think erasing the scar erased anything, because they made good stories if nothing else…

But it wasn’t a total blank slate. Just the ones he should have gotten in Pegasus.  

The marks on his knuckles from when Dave knocked him out of their tree house when John was like ten…there. The burn on his wrist when he was a teenager and there was a stupid, drunk bonfire…there. All the shit from Afghanistan…there.  

But nothing from Pegasus.  

Sheppard had new scars, marks he had zero memory of. Besides the one on his thigh, there was an unmistakable bullet wound - dull and pink – hiding in his chest hair just below his shoulder. It was low enough to have been bad, very bad. A few old laparoscopic dots, too, again hidden in his body hair.  There was an uneven line on the back of his left arm, long since healed but still visible. Maybe a knife, or something. Or scraped on a rock.   

He was staring at himself in the mirror, fingering each scar in turn like they would come away, peel off his body like stage makeup.  

“Are you alright, sir?” That was Lam’s cool, assessing voice from behind him.  

One glance at the mirror told him he’d left the door ajar. She was giving him the benefit of just standing right outside, for the moment. He could see her concerned face in the crack.

Sheppard didn’t answer immediately and he saw the crack widen substantially as Lam quietly toed it open.

“Sir?” she repeated.  

He glanced up the reflection of her face, sharp and curious. God knew what she thought was going on. The patient bathrooms didn’t have locks, but all Sheppard wanted to do was slam the door before she could enter. Barricade himself inside until the world on the outside made some goddamn sense.  

“Yeah,” he finally answered, but he heard his voice sound ragged and upset and not at all okay.  

Lam took that as permission to enter, because she did. Sheppard forced himself to stop touching the mark on his arm, instead quietly crossed his hands over his junk since he was standing there like a nude maniac.  

“You alright?” Lam repeated, quieter. She was peering at his face.  

Sheppard nodded, swallowed hard. He didn’t get why he’d been hit so hard, didn’t get why it suddenly hurt as if he’d lost someone.  

Lam didn’t ask why he was staring at himself naked in the bathroom mirror.  

“You want to go back to bed?” she prompted.  

“Yeah, okay,” Sheppard whispered.  

She waited for him to start moving, didn’t comment on his slow, shuffling stride.  

Back at his gurney, someone had turned off the wailing alarm. Sheppard blinked at it, almost baffled by his own lack of stealth.  

Putting back on the discarded sweats was ridiculously hard. Lam let him do it by himself. Sheppard struggled through, though, watched as the stupid round scar that wasn’t his vanished as he finally pulled the waistband up.  

Lam waited until he was horizontal again, clipped the monitor back on his finger. And then she watched his high, erratic heartbeat appear on the screen. 

“Would you like some valium?” she asked, somehow making the request to dope him sound reasonable.  

Sheppard shook his head. He clutched at the sheets pulled over him, wondering if she was going to want to give him some, anyway.  

“It’s okay,” was all Lam said. “You’re okay.” 

Sheppard held very still, tried not to give her any inclination of how much he disagreed with that statement.  

~ 

By the time his next visitor – Ford – showed up, Sheppard was mostly over his freak out. He didn’t look at his new scars and was trying very hard not to think about his missing old ones. Though Lam hadn’t asked specifically, she definitely wanted to know what had happened. Sheppard wasn’t going to share.  

Ford looked like maybe Lam had warned him Sheppard had had some kind of mysterious meltdown a little while ago, face hesitant and smile sort of wary.  

Sheppard sat on his gurney and tried to look not crazy.  

“Hey,” he said, when Ford entered.  

“Hey,” Ford said, smiling growing. “You feeling better?” 

“Yeah,” Sheppard lied. “Coming along.” 

Ford grinned and nodded enthusiastically.

 “Look,” Sheppard said. “I was thinking you could help me clear some things up.” 

“Okay.” Ford took a seat on the omnipresent stool. “Like what?” 

“What I’m…confused about,” Sheppard said, picking his words carefully. “Is Atlantis. So maybe you could tell me what happened to the mission crewmembers?” 

“What happened?” Ford repeated. “You mean there?” 

“No,” Sheppard said, “I think Lorne kind of covered that. I mean, where’s Dr. Weir now?” 

“Ohhh.” Ford understood. “Dr. Weir? Um, I think she’s working for the UN in –” he paused, eyes tipping up – “Czechoslovakia?” 

“Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist any more,” Sheppard said. Then he stopped. “Does it?” 

“I guess not,” Ford said, easily. “It was Eastern Europe, that’s all I know.” 

Sheppard swallowed. “She’s okay?” 

“Yeah,” Ford said, breezily. He regarded Sheppard’s face and his own expression flickered. “Why?” 

“I’d like to talk to her,” Sheppard said, even though he already thought it was a really dumb idea. “If that’s possible.” 

“I’ll mention it to someone who can make it happen,” Ford promised. He looked like he’d decided to ignore whatever weirdness Sheppard was broadcasting. “Anyone else you want to see?” 

“Carson Beckett,” Sheppard said, immediately.  

“Okay,” Ford answered. “I bet he’s back in Scotland, though.” 

It was awfully convenient that two of the people that died in Pegasus were nowhere to be found. 

“There should be some kind of yearbook,” Ford was saying. “Where Are They Now: Atlantis Mission.” 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “That’d help me.”  

It wouldn’t.  He didn’t know what it would do, but it wouldn’t help.  

~ 

Everything kind of stayed the same for a while. The same visitors, usually in the same order. Teyla, looking bravely heartbroken. Cameron Mitchell and Sam Carter, both excessively cheerful and trying to talk to him like he remembered their alleged friendships. He didn’t, but they were easier to be around than Ford and Lorne, who didn’t remember their friendships with Sheppard the way he did. Or Teyla, who was clearly trying very hard not show that she was upset and yet made Sheppard feel like crap anyway.  

The anthropologist lady he didn’t recognize occasionally came around and Sheppard tried mostly to ignore her. He was having enough trouble with the people he was supposed to know. Jackson, who he also didn’t really know, visited a lot, too. Sheppard wasn’t as annoyed by him. The guy mostly kept quiet and didn’t do much except just be there, which Sheppard didn’t mind. He appreciated the silence, since everyone else jabbered non-stop about crap he didn’t remember or tried to interrogate him. 

One very different thing happened.  It would have been different regardless, but it just added another bizarre layer of weird to Sheppard’s new life.  

His brother called.  

Teyla brought him the phone and put it in his hands before he fully processed what she’d said.  

“Dave?” he repeated.  

Teyla nodded.  

For a second, Sheppard just blinked at her. “Does – does he know about my…memory issues?” That was one way to put it, anyway.  

“He does,” Teyla said.  

He could hear the murmur a voice coming out of the phone, had no choice but to put it to his ear.  

And then Sheppard talked to his brother on the phone.  Something he hadn’t done in…possibly ever. He’d never had the inclination and if Dave had, the logistics of deployment usually meant Sheppard would have had to initiate or it wouldn’t happen. So, it had never happened. And then Atlantis. Well, not here.  

And here, some time while Atlantis hadn’t happened, he and Dave had apparently started talking on the phone.  

Dave understood immediately that Sheppard didn’t remember reconciling. Maybe he’d figured it out based on what Teyla had told him, or maybe Sheppard’s voice just sounded that awkward.  

Talking to Dave was like everything else. It felt weird. And also okay, which just made it weirder.  

Dave sounded worried and falsely upbeat, actually a lot like everyone else who talked to him now. But coming from his little brother, it hit Sheppard right in the chest in a new way. Stirred up old, ancient family shit. Made him feel glad he was alone in the room, except he wasn’t alone since Teyla was leaning against the far wall near the drawn curtain. Sheppard glanced up at her and she must have seen something in his face because her expression flickered, then she dipped her head and slipped silently through the exit.  

Sheppard might have felt bad, but he didn’t think he could listen to Dave sounding like that with Teyla standing there looking at him.  

He learned from Dave what most of the people around him had only really implied. They hadn’t actually expected Sheppard to wake up. Ever. And Dave was pretty upset about that and not all that able to hide it behind all his relief that Sheppard was in fact awake.  

Some how that turned the conversation – well, Dave’s monologue, anyway – to the fact that Dave and Teyla had been in communication during all this. Discussing, among other things, whether Sheppard would be buried in the plot next to Dad.  

Dad was dead here, too. But Sheppard had brought Teyla to the funeral, not Ronon. Because Ronon didn’t exist here. It didn’t sound like there’d been a side of Replicator fun, either, though Dave wouldn’t necessarily know about that.  

Dave’s words swirled in his head. Death, death, death. Dad. Teyla. _Ronon_.  

A pressure settled on Sheppard’s chest that felt disturbingly like grief. Out of nowhere, solid and heavy and as real as any of this.  

His brother interpreted the hitch in his voice as exhaustion. He made excuses to hang up, repeated how glad he was that John was alive.  

“It was good to talk to you,” Dave said. “Hopefully, I’ll see you soon.” 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. And it was good to talk to his brother, even if as far as he knew it was just this once. And even though it made him choke up for reasons he didn’t fully understand.  

Sheppard was sitting there alone for a few minutes, setting the phone back on its cradle. He was still blinking back stupid tears when Teyla quietly entered. Quickly, he dipped his head, shifted one hand to shield his face. She didn’t say anything, just reached for the phone to take it away.  

“This is really hard,” Sheppard said, when she leaned over to pick it up. 

Teyla paused. Her hand redirected off the phone, coming to land on his shoulder. After a second, Sheppard raised his own hand and put it over hers.  

~ 

Kate Heightmeyer was alive.  

Sheppard found out because she came to see him for a therapy session. Lam had said a shrink was coming, hadn’t given him any choice about it. So he’d mostly just been preemptively pissed off about it. Ford and Mitchell had been around before the appointment, maybe because they knew him well enough to think that even a healthy, non-amnesiac John Sheppard would have tried to run away from a psychologist.  

But then Kate walked in. All of Sheppard’s resentment just vanished, replaced by a stultifying wave of emotion that ran intensely up his spine.  

“Hi, John,” Heightmeyer said, smiling at him.

She looked the same, mostly. Her hair was a little darker. Sheppard’s eyes traveled downwards, suddenly landing on an unexpected curve in her midsection. Heightmeyer was pregnant.  

Somehow, he got his eyes up to her face and managed to make his voice work.  

“Hey,” he said.  

“I’m Dr. Kate Height-” she began.  

“I know,” he interrupted. “I know who you are.” 

“Okay.” She took a seat on the stool, still smiling. She wasn’t doing any of the hesitant, awkward body language everyone else was, at least not yet.  

Sheppard’s side of the conversation was awkward, though. Maybe Heightmeyer knew how to pretend not to be weirded out by crazy patients – she was a shrink, after all. She acted relaxed and easy-going, even though Sheppard was probably staring at her like a mad man.  

When he got it together enough to focus on what she was saying, he learned a couple of things.  

For one, she wasn’t here to persuade him that the Atlantis mission hadn’t gone as he remembered it. She didn’t know, of course, that Sheppard thought she was dead.  No one would know that unless he told them.

Heightmeyer was here because the ‘dissociativefugue’ Lam had diagnosed him with wasn’t actually a medical condition. It was a _psychiatric_ one. And the moment Sheppard processed that statement, he felt like an idiot. A genuinely crazy idiot.  

But Heightmeyer was talking calmly about it, like it didn’t mean anything all that scary. She said she’d treated military personnel with it before. That didn’t actually make him feel better.  

“If it’s from hitting my head,” he asked, “how come I don’t remember the whole five years before that happened?” 

“It’s a response to trauma,” Heightmeyer said. “I suspect your mind simply recalled the most recent traumatic experience and began…reprocessing those memories.” 

Sheppard had a hard time assigning the word ‘trauma’ to the Atlantis mission. Scary, yeah. Intense. Hard, sometimes. Ridiculously hard. But not ‘trauma’.  

“Oh,” was all he said.  

“We’ll get you back,’ Heightmeyer promised. “There are a lot of techniques. We’ll work together.” 

“Now?” Sheppard asked, and something about his voice or his face made Heightmeyer look concerned.  

“Not today,” she said. “I just wanted to lay out the game plan.” 

“Okay,” Sheppard said, a little relieved.  

Heightmeyer smiled. “One step at a time. I’m glad you’re open to the process.” 

Sheppard shrugged. Then, he paused. “I’m glad it’s you.” He was. He didn’t particularly want to think about it, but he was so, so glad she was alive.  

For some reason, Heightmeyer tilted her head. “Because I was on the Atlantis mission?” she guessed, looking genuinely curious.  

“Yeah,” he said. “I know you’re good.” 

“I never got to do any therapy there,” Heightmeyer said. “Except dispense anti-anxiety drugs ‘til I ran out.” She was looking at him contemplatively.  

“You did,” Sheppard told her, not bothering to wonder if he should be sharing. You were supposed to share with shrinks, which might be why she was here in the first place. And it was working, even if it was a trick. “You did good.” 

Heightmeyer nodded, then rose. “I’ll set up a therapy schedule,” was all she said.  

“Okay,” Sheppard said. He flicked his eyes downwards at her stomach. “Congrats.” 

She paused, half way through the curtain exit. “Thanks.” 

~

The dead weren’t just walking around. They were also e-mailing him. Teyla brought him a printed out message from Elizabeth Weir.  

“You have received many e-mails,” Teyla said. “I can bring you a laptop so that you may read the rest.” She looked a little guilty, like maybe she thought he wouldn’t like her reading his mail.  

“Okay,” he said, not really listening. He took the sheet of computer paper from Teyla’s hands.  

He didn’t know what he expected. Lorne had said his condition had leaked – the whole base knew he was awake and wasn’t right in the head. Which was fantastic. Someone must have contacted Elizabeth. Who knew what they’d told her about him.  

The e-mail was actually quite short. And not that friendly, either. It was very…professionally terse.  

Weir knew he had amnesia about the Atlantis mission. Probably didn’t know he had alternate memories for the past five years. The e-mail was basically a get well card minus any sappy Hallmark illustrations, which he appreciated.  

She said she was in Kosovo with the United Nations and her job was ‘interesting and challenging.’ He figured that meant ‘hard as hell.’ Weir expressed concern for his head injury and wished him a speedy recovery. And that was all the e-mail said. It wasn’t emotional or personal or…much of anything. Mostly, it seemed a polite message sent because someone told her to.  

And that was…weird. Maybe here Sheppard and Weir had had a crappy relationship. It made his forehead crease, made him again wonder just what the hell had happened beyond what Lorne had told him.  

“You know Dr. Weir?” he asked Teyla, who was spinning herself lightly on the visitor’s stool.  

Teyla stilled. “Not well,” she said.  

“But you met her on the Atlantis mission,” Sheppard pressed.  

This got a headshake. “Met, yes. I did not speak to her extensively.” Teyla peered at him. “Why do you ask?” 

“Were we friends?” he asked. “Me and her?” 

“I do not believe so,” Teyla said. “Colleagues.” 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “But…” 

“It was a difficult time,” Teyla said when he trailed off.  

Sheppard thought in silence for a moment. He tried to imagine how he might have dealt with a massive civilian presence under attack in a new environment – under attack by the goddamn Wraith, at that. It was probably not a situation where the military would have obeyed a civilian leader. Not Sumner and not Sheppard. Maybe that contributed to the coolness of Weir’s e-mail. 

That shouldn’t have been as upsetting as it was. This Weir was alive and well – married if the hyphen on her e-mail address was any indication – and untouched by all the Replicator shit. Untouched by everything that had happened in Pegasus.

~

Sheppard and McKay weren’t friends in this universe, either. He probably should have just let it go after the indifferent missive from Weir, probably should have let it go the moment he opened his eyes and Lam said the Atlantis mission was long since over.

He didn’t. Sheppard asked Carter to get a hold of McKay for him, after she never followed up on his original request. Even if he’d left the Stargate program, Sheppard correctly guessed that McKay would have still made it possible for Carter if no one else to contact him.

Carter wasn’t a very cooperative messenger. When he asked her, Carter stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Why?” she asked, bluntly.

That should have been warning enough.

“I think it would help me,” Sheppard said. That wasn’t wholly true. Nothing was helping. Continuing to explore the vast differences between the life he remembered and the one he’d allegedly lived probably didn’t meet anyone’s – particularly Heightmeyer’s – definition of ‘help.’ “Heightmeyer said it’d be a good idea,” he lied.

“She doesn’t know McKay,” Carter said.

“She was there, too,” he retorted. She looked a little taken aback. “She was,” he said, softer. “Could you look into it for me, please?”

“Yeah,” Carter said, agreeably. “What do you want me to tell him?”

Sheppard shrugged. “The truth,” he said.

“Okay.” Carter paused. “He can be kind of a jerk, you know.” When he didn’t answer immediately, she went on. “You should know that.”

“I know,” Sheppard said. She seemed worried McKay would make him cry or something. “I’m kind of counting on it.”

A few days later, Carter brought him a printed out e-mail. She looked embarrassed. “We should see about getting you a laptop,” she said.

He reached out for the paper. “Thanks.”

It wasn’t a get well card like Weir’s message. Sheppard knew that with a glance. Also, it was much longer.

“What are you expecting?” Carter asked, gently.

Sheppard was expecting a rant. And he got one. This McKay was not a friend of Sheppard’s and he wasn’t a fan, either. His response to Carter’s e-mail was a lengthy inquiry into whether or not Sheppard remembered being a ‘fascist abusive bastard’ during their time in the ‘hellhole that is the Pegasus galaxy.’ And if he didn’t, McKay could visit to personally remind him.

Sheppard read it once, then read it again. Carter stayed in his room while he did so, drifting quietly around the edges.

It didn’t really hit him in a bad way. After Weir’s message and Lorne’s description of the mission arrival, Sheppard had figured that things hadn’t gone in a way that would have made for very happy people. Without asking for any more files, he could imagine the stress of corralling that many civilians in hostile territory under attack by an unknown enemy. He probably had been a fascist abusive bastard. And he’d been counting on McKay’s honesty to elucidate the story a little.

It was a little strange to read that much sincere aggression rather than huffing and puffing from Rodney, but it was still kind of familiar.

Sheppard looked up to find Carter watching him.

“Thanks,” he told her, again.

“Okay,” she said, evidently deciding not to press. That wasn’t her job, anyway. “Glad to help.”

“McKay’s doing okay?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” Carter said, at least concealing her reaction if she was baffled that he cared. “He, um, makes a lot of money in the private sector.” She shrugged. “And we’ve had to call him for help sometimes. That makes him…really smug.”

Sheppard grinned, then hid it with his hand. Carter caught it and blinked in confusion.

“I guess you knew that, anyway,” she said. He nodded. “So, you remember him?”

“No,” Sheppard said. “I don’t.”

~

Sheppard had babysitters. He was never left alone. It wasn’t explicit, but eventually he realized that whenever one companion left, another immediately showed up. There was always a nurse, or an orderly, or a physical therapist, or Ford, or Mitchell, and so on. Occasionally an armed airman got the job, and it was the stiff posture and intense gaze that finally clued Sheppard in to the fact that he was under surveillance.

He didn’t really have the right to be pissed off about it. He had _stabbed_ Dr. Lam, after all. With perfectly good reason, even if they didn’t believe him.

Teyla wasn’t around as much. He didn’t know why. Maybe they didn’t trust her, or didn’t trust him around her, or she didn’t want to be around him.

He missed her.

 

Even though she wasn’t his Teyla, she was more familiar than anyone else and he was more comfortable around her than any of these strangers. Especially Ford.

They were uncomfortable around him, too. Upset that he wasn’t the John Sheppard they wanted him to be. It was both reassuring and terrifying. Maybe he really was their brain-damaged friend who didn’t remember these people or their friendships. But that would mean that he really was this brain-damaged man with fake memories of friends created by broken and misfiring synapses.

For this, he preferred the professional babysitters. To the medical personnel, he was just a neurologically-impaired patient and they focused mostly on fixing his body and ignored his brain. To the airmen, he was just a potential threat and they paid attention only to his movements and not his emotions. They either hadn’t known him before his brains had been scrambled or they didn’t like him enough to care. Those who had were horribly uncomfortable with him.

Dr. Daniel Jackson wasn’t ill at ease around him.

He didn’t approach Sheppard with ginger hesitancy or overly effusive camaraderie like the others. He also didn’t drop leading comments, trying to figure out if Sheppard remembered random experiences they had allegedly shared. And because he didn’t do either of those things, Jackson also didn’t get visibly upset when it became obvious Sheppard had no fucking clue what he was getting at.

Sheppard didn’t think they’d been friends. Jackson was okay. But if he wasn’t reading, he wasn’t quiet. The man yakked. A lot. Sheppard found it really hard to pay attention to the constant yammering. He knew he should probably listen to the man in case his words rang any bells – of familiarity or of alarm – but the guy never shut up and Sheppard would tune him out.

But Jackson was useful because he’d accompany Sheppard to the upper levels of the SGC and eventually out of the Mountain. The infirmary staff didn’t want their patient to wander that far and the Airmen weren’t authorized to let him outside. Mitchell or Ford would go with him, but they’d use the opportunity to get at him alone to pepper him with questions that he totally couldn’t answer.  

Jackson showed up as he always did, at exactly eight pm. He strolled into the room, nodding at Sheppard’s departing babysitter nurse.

“Hey,” he said, as casually as if he’d just randomly decided to stop in. His hands were shoved into his pockets. “How’s it going?”

“Hey,” Sheppard said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I want to go to the surface.”

Jackson dipped his head, nodded. “Okay.”

~

 


	3. The Undone Years 3/7

The stars over Colorado Springs were the same as they always were. Blurry and indistinct, overshadowed by blazing light pollution. The view sucked, but Sheppard liked to look at it, anyway. He and Jackson never went farther than the second checkpoint. Sheppard was content with that.

“Sooo,” Jackson said, as Sheppard stared up at the sky. “How’s the memory coming?”

Scowling, Sheppard didn’t bother to look at him. “About the same,” he said. “Heightmeyer’s talking about hypnosis or something.”

“Hm,” Jackson murmured. “What about the Tok’ra memory recall device?”

“Lam said that’s not a good thing to use on someone with a recent head injury,” Sheppard told him. “I have enough brain damage.”

“Oh.” Jackson paused. “It’ll come.” He said it with such calm confidence that it instantly irritated Sheppard.

Sheppard took his eyes off the stars long enough to glare at the man. “You don’t know that.”

Jackson didn’t mind the aggression. He shrugged. “It’ll come,” he repeated.

“Why do you care?” Sheppard challenged. Jackson blinked at him and opened his mouth to respond, but Sheppard went on. “Were we friends?”

Jackson pursed his lips, which really was a totally infuriating non-answer. Except it was a totally stupid thing to get mad about. Sheppard went back to looking at the sky.

“We were _collegial_ ,” Jackson said, voice a little hurt. Sheppard heard his clothing rustle as he shrugged.

“Then why do you care?” Sheppard asked again, still not looking at him. “Why are you here? Why are you always around?”

“I…know a little about what it’s like not to remember who you are,” Jackson said, slowly. “And what it’s like to come back to yourself. It’s not a fun thing.” He shrugged again. “I wanted to help if I could.”

“This isn’t supernatural,” Sheppard reminded him, meeting his gaze again. “I hit my head on a rock. You went all glowy.”

Jackson nodded. “The shrinks don’t understand how that works, either,” he offered. “I think they treated me like I had a head injury, actually.”

Sheppard wasn’t really listening, though. _Ascension_. The word bounced around his head. It hadn’t even occurred to him, but…maybe?

Jackson noticed his silence. “What?” he prompted.

Sheppard didn’t answer for a moment. He didn’t have any reason to believe it. No evidence, no memories of a glowy one coming to take him away. But it made sense – in as much as any of that supernatural shit made sense – and he liked it better than accidental brain damage.

“You remembered everything?” he asked Jackson. “When you came back? When you –” he struggled for the right word and finally settled on –“Descended?”

“Eventually,” Jackson said, a little too blasé about that. And a little too uncertain. “I think so.”

“Ascending?” Sheppard asked. “And getting kicked out?”

“No,” Jackson said, shaking his head. “Jack actually remembers the first one. But everything from that time is just a blur. I remember some emotions. And every now and then I feel déjà vu about something I’ve never seen before. But I wasn’t allowed to…keep…any of that time.”

Sheppard didn’t say anything. But Jackson had apparently already figured it out.

“I didn’t have alternate memories,” he said, mildly. “I don’t know if I got it all back, but I didn’t get any extra.”

Defensive, Sheppard crossed his arms and just shrugged.

“I don’t think they’re allowed to do that,’ Jackson said, thoughtfully. “They shouldn’t be, anyway.” Sheppard said nothing. “I was really bad,” Jackson went on. “And the worst thing they did was bring me back naked.”

Sheppard tracked a plane across the night sky and still didn’t say anything.

Jackson let the silence hang for a few minutes.

“Was I there?” he asked, changing the subject. “Did I get to go to Atlantis?”

“No,” Sheppard snapped at him.

“Oh.” Jackson frowned.

“You got to visit, though,” Sheppard said. “A couple of times. O’Neill never let you stay.”

Jackson scowled. “That really happened,” he said. “Wouldn’t let me go on the mission at all. I got a big told-you-so dance when the Prometheus had to save your butts.” He caught Sheppard glaring at him. “You don’t remember that part.”

“I don’t really want to,” Sheppard said, honestly.

~

 

Ascension. It was Sheppard’s new favorite word. He didn’t tell Heightmeyer or Lam, and he didn’t think Jackson had. Possibly because the guy secretly thought Sheppard wasn’t special enough to go glowy and hadn’t hid it very well.

Sheppard tried to imagine himself agreeing to go all non-corporeal. It was hard. But then, the choice between dying from klutziness and sticking around as a floating thing might have made the decision for him.

But coming back like this. Taking away everything – taking away _Atlantis_ – was just wrong. Jackson said the Ascended couldn’t mess with humans. This was turning the universe on its head. Bringing back the dead. It was breaking all the rules and then some.

He knew the idea was part narcissism and part denial. But there was a part that was believable. If Atlantis had done something – accidentally, unknowing – so bad it was worth it for Jackson’s glowy friends to wipe it out completely. Make it like it had never happened.

A lot of bad things had happened in Pegasus. Sheppard knew this. And the Atlantis mission had put a lot of it in motion. But they’d also done a lot of good. He didn’t know that it evened out, but it wasn’t that lopsided.

And he had no proof that this universe was any better. In fact, he was thinking it might be a lot worse, especially in Pegasus. If the Atlantis mission had met the Wraith – _woken_ the Wraith – and then _left_.

Sheppard couldn’t talk about it with anyone. The idea that this was an elaborate illusion by alien captors was fading fast, but he still couldn’t – still _felt_ he shouldn’t – share with these people. He knew every second he clung to his memories rather than what they told him had happened made him look more and more crazy. If he told them that the IOA had just badly fucked the Pegasus galaxy over, he wasn’t sure what would happen. It seemed unlikely to be good for him.

All the same, it itched inside his chest constantly. If the Wraith were awake, unopposed by Atlantis, unencumbered by the Hoffan virus - whatever good it had done – and free of most of the internal conflict that Atlantis’ actions had influenced…

Sheppard didn’t mean to, but he sort of told Heightmeyer. He had biweekly appointments with her and she was irritatingly good at getting him to talk. Somehow, she managed to get him to tell her he was very concerned about what the incomplete Atlantis mission had done when it left Pegasus.

Heightmeyer nodded, but then she launched into a speech about how it was important to focus on his reality instead of the one created by a brain injury. He wasn’t supposed to care about Pegasus.

That made something cold and heavy join the itch in his chest. Sheppard pretended it didn’t and tried not to show just how terrible he felt about it. 

His confession actually helped, though. Only a few days later, Lorne showed up with the mission reports from Pegasus. It was a heap of manila folders, stacked so high he had to put them on the floor in two separate piles. The true measure of any clusterfuck was how much paperwork it produced.

“Thanks,” Sheppard said. He’d asked for them weeks ago and only been given the random ones from afterwards.

“No problem,” Lorne said. “It took a while for clearance.”

“I have clearance,” Sheppard said, already opening the first folder.

For a second, Lorne was silent. Then he shrugged. “Yeah, well.”

Sheppard paused and looked up at him. He realized suddenly that the military had probably been content not to let the brain-damaged man read the top secret records that he happened to no longer remember. Crazy people didn’t keep secrets all that well.

“Thanks,” Sheppard said again, and chose not to think about what the Air Force was going to do to a neurologically-impaired, amnesiac pilot.

Lorne vanished while Sheppard read. He probably didn’t want to be around to answer any questions. 

The Atlantis mission recounted in the reports was not the one Sheppard remembered. It was as Lorne had said. The city wasn’t there. It just wasn’t.

Athos, however, had been just where Sumner and Sheppard and their men had found it. And Teyla had been there, too.

But the Wraith attack on the Athosians hadn’t been a scouting mission. It’d been a culling.

Sheppard hadn’t killed Sumner. He got to that part and had to stop and read it again. Sumner and half the squad had tried to herd the Athosians to a different cave. They’d all vanished into a culling beam. Teyla had been injured somehow, separated from her people when Sumner moved them out into the open. It was the only reason she was alive.  The only reason she was here.

Sheppard couldn’t imagine it. Even though he’d been there, been there at least in one version. But he remembered shooting Sumner, remembered killing that bitch queen.

Except he hadn’t.

Sheppard hadn’t even ended up on board a hive ship. He’d been on the ground with the entire complement of terrified civilians, the remaining military squads, and he’d kept them alive hiding in the caves for months until the Prometheus arrived.

And that was that.

They’d never woken the Wraith. Never found Atlantis. Never done any of it.

Sheppard sat there and stared at the paper, but the words didn’t change. He found it impossible to process. He understood every sentence, but didn’t comprehend any of it.

~

Nothing changed after Sheppard got to read the reports. He didn’t even read all of them. The first few told him everything and were pretty repetitive. It didn’t seem worth going through the rest in the futile hopes that somehow he’d find something familiar.

He didn’t even feel relief that the Wraith had never woken. That probably meant he was an asshole. Sheppard knew that millions and millions of lives had been saved, but he sure as hell didn’t feel that way. Yeah, he was an asshole.

The Athosians were gone, though. A couple hundred people. Teyla’s people. That hurt. She was alone now. Alone with him and he didn’t even remember her. Not this Teyla, anyway.

Teyla had mostly stopped trying to touch him, caress him, or hold his hand. She still made aborted movements to do so, but halted before completing the gestures. Sheppard could read the pain on her face even though she was clearly trying to hide it. It made him feel like a bigger asshole.

Other people thought he was an asshole for that, too.  It seemed to bother them more than the fact that he didn’t remember missions or friendships or any of that. But not remembering his _wife_ disturbed everyone.

Heightmeyer brought up couples counseling, at the end of one of their very unproductive sessions. Sheppard just blinked at her.

“What?” he asked.

“Couples counseling,” Heightmeyer repeated. “This has been very hard on your wife.”

Sheppard stared at her. “Teyla,” he said, finally. It took him a few seconds. It always took him a few seconds and everyone in the vicinity always looked at him like he was a moron.

“Yes,” Heightmeyer said. She had the decency not to acknowledge his hesitation.

“Isn’t that for people who remember being married?” he asked. Because having Teyla here for these painful, pointless sessions would just make them suck more.

“She remembers,” Heightmeyer said, not giving him any room to argue. He must have scowled involuntarily because she looked at him sharply. “A spouse is often the person who knows the most about an amnesiac patient, colonel.”

“This already sucks for her,” Sheppard said. “I don’t think she should have to hear it from me over and over again how much I don’t remember her.”

Heightmeyer squinted at him. “Then stop telling her?”

He scrunched down into the chair and didn’t say anything.

~

Teyla was a lot nicer to Sheppard than she probably should have been. She could have gone off world with her team and stayed there. Pretty much any mission would have been more fun for her. He tried telling her that she could go. It might have sounded like he was telling her to get lost, but that’s not how he meant it. But he got yelled at by pretty much everyone he knew for it, anyway.

Teyla stayed. She brought him meals, even though he was allowed to wander to the cafeteria now. Mitchell, Ford, and Lorne were all smuggling him takeout. He probably wasn’t supposed to have hamburgers or ribs or Chinese or anything that tasted like food, but Sheppard couldn’t see how raising his cholesterol had anything to do with his brain or memory. Lam mostly just rolled her eyes and didn’t stop them, so at least he had that going for him.

Sheppard was getting better. Physically, at least. The physical therapy with Keller, as much as he hated it, was working. He was stronger and more coordinated, gaining weight and muscle. The hair on his head was beginning to grow back. It still looked horrible and Lam said she’d just have to shave it again when the stitches and staples or whatever needed to come out.  So he let the staff keep trimming it down.

For a man who had been on his deathbed, Sheppard knew his recovery was pretty amazing. The fact that it didn’t feel amazing to him, that it mostly just continued to be confusing and hard and so different it made his teeth ache, was his problem not Teyla’s or anyone else’s.

It was good that Dr. Weir was alive. It was good that Kate Heightmeyer was alive. It was fucking fantastic that the Wraith were still in hibernation. And Teyla loved him.

He tried to tell himself this over and over again. Everyone who had died in Pegasus, everyone killed because of the Hoffan virus or the Replicator shit. None of it had happened.

If the fucking Ascended were behind this, he didn’t know why they’d wiped out the Athosians. That wasn’t fair. Actually, none of this was fair. Least of all the fact that only Sheppard remembered the way it had really happened.

Teyla brought him a burrito from a local Mexican place for dinner. She put her taco salad on another tray and took a seat, then rose abruptly as if remember something.

“I will be right back,” she said, and went to find Lam.

Sheppard watched curiously as Teyla took an envelope out of her purse – and Teyla carried a purse, how weird was that – and handed it to Lam with a few words. For some reason, Lam just rolled her eyes. Sheppard heard her thank Teyla, even as she looked to have no interest in the letter.

“What was that?” Sheppard asked when Teyla returned.

“A letter from Carson,” Teyla answered. “Dr. Beckett,” she said, as if he wouldn’t understand. “He –”

“He’s –” Sheppard began. He was going to say ‘alive,’ but Lam drifted over and interrupted.

“Backseat driving your medical care from across the globe,” Lam said, sounding mildly irritated. “Apparently, he became a neurologist in his spare time.”

“He only recently learned of the accident and your condition,” Teyla said. “He wants to help.”

Sheppard didn’t say anything. He unwrapped his burrito and took a bite. Of course, his silence just made both women look at him curiously.

“Do you –” Lam began.

He knew what she was going to ask, so he just interrupted. “Yeah,” he said. “I know who he is. Where’s he at, now?”

“Africa,” Lam said. “Doctors without Borders.”

“Huh,” Sheppard said. He had a hard time imagining the Carson they’d taken to Pegasus – but who hadn’t gotten to stay – undertaking something like that. But it was better than the Carson who’d gone to Pegasus and stayed there. “Tell him I say hi,” was all he said.

“I’m going to tell him he’s not a neurologist,” Lam muttered as she walked off. Sheppard didn’t think Lam was that particular specialist, either, but he just went back to eating his burrito.

Teyla settled down and opened her dinner, as well. She wasn’t even staring at Sheppard in that creepy, curious way that everyone did when someone who was supposed to be dead turned out to be alive and he failed to hide his reaction appropriately. So, he didn’t know why he told her anything.

“He was dead,” Sheppard said.

Teyla looked up, fork paused halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“Carson,” he said, softly. “He died.”

Teyla didn’t seem to know how to react to that. Fair enough. Sheppard shrugged and went back to his burrito while she blinked at him.

“Oh,” she said, finally. “He did not. He is…well.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Good.”

They ate in silence for a while, though Sheppard could see that Teyla was thinking this new piece of information over.

“It must be strange,” she said, eventually. “Can Kate explain why you would think such a thing?”

“No,” Sheppard said. Then, “I haven’t asked.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “It’s crazy. I’m crazy.”

Teyla frowned. “I do not believe so.”

Sheppard flicked his eyes at her. He could have said something really hurtful to remind her of the fact that he didn’t remember other important things, either. Instead, he shrugged again. “I’m glad he’s alive.”

“As am I,” Teyla said and smiled widely. “He is a very dear friend.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded emphatically. “Do you remember otherwise?”

“No,” Sheppard said. “That’s…that’s the same.”

Teyla had pretty much abandoned her dinner. She must have been excited he was finally talking to her.

“Do you remember others,” she asked, “others who you thought were dead?”

Sheppard grimaced. “Yeah.”

Teyla paused, but only for a moment. “Me?”

“No,” Sheppard said, quickly. He shook his head. “No.”

“Good,” Teyla said. She tried to smile about it.

“Yeah.”

But Teyla was looking at him like she was holding back on another question, and Sheppard found himself answering it.

“You’re married,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Not to me,” he interrupted, and looked down so he wouldn’t have to see her face. “An Athosian guy.”

When he raised his eyes, Teyla looked more stunned than anything else. Like she was having trouble processing that statement. It was about time someone else was in that position.

“Not married,” he went on. “But together. I don’t know if Athosians do that.”

“Do what?”

“Marry.”

“We do,” Teyla said, almost sharply.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Anyway, you’re together and you had a kid, and that’s how it was.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not just being an asshole.  I’m sorry. That’s how it was.”

Teyla’s eyes were big, She seemed to have missed the rest of his words. “You said I had a child?”

He nodded. “Yeah. A boy. A son. Torren.”

“That was my father’s name.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The shock on Teyla’s face was being replaced with something that looked an awful lot like distress. Sheppard didn’t know why. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

“Look,” he said, “Heightmeyer wanted us to talk – together – with her there. And I didn’t want that.” Teyla stared at him. “So, that’s what I had to say.”

“Alright,” she said, slowly, nodding but not really at him. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I won’t,” he said, because she really did look upset. “It’s nothing.”

“It is real to you,” Teyla retorted.

He nodded. It was true and didn’t look to be changing any time soon despite Heightmeyer’s best efforts. “But you should know, it has nothing to do with you.” He forced himself to continue: “The real you.”

“Very well,” Teyla said, after a moment. “Thank you for being honest.”

“All I can do,” Sheppard said. He looked down at his dinner. “Thanks for the burrito.”

~

The conversation with Teyla, hard and painful as it had been, seemed to make things easier. Teyla, at least, understood where he was coming from now. Understood a little. He hadn’t mentioned all the other things. He knew she wasn’t exactly happy about it, but he figured knowing what was going on in his skull would help her deal with the fact that her husband was still a grade-A lunatic with selective memory loss.

She might have spilled to Heightmeyer what he’d told her. Sheppard wasn’t sure. Heightmeyer didn’t bring up the idea of having Teyla join their sessions again. He was glad.

Heightmeyer wanted to try hypnosis next.  Sheppard wasn’t thrilled. He didn’t think it would work.

Freaking Heightmeyer wouldn’t let him get out of it, though.

“Are you afraid it won’t work?” she asked. “Or afraid it will?”

“The first one,” he snapped, ignoring her pointed look.

It didn’t work.

Sheppard didn’t remember what he said or what Heightmeyer asked him. He woke as if from an indistinct dream to hear her voice counting down. For a second, he waited. Waited for memories to come flooding back.

They didn’t.

He blinked his bleary eyes open and found Heightmeyer’s face. Her lips were tight, eyes concerned.

“What’d I say?” he asked.

“Your dissociative reality is very complex,” she said. “I couldn’t get past it.”

Sheppard nodded. He felt sleepy and a little uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Heightmeyer reminded him. She paused and leaned forward in her seat. “Can you tell me who Ronon is?”

Sheppard froze. “I mentioned him?”

Heightmeyer nodded and waited.

“I think I made him up,” Sheppard said, slowly. “He doesn’t exist. Or I haven’t met him yet.” She didn’t say anything. He looked at her. “Is that weird?”

“Unusual,” Heightmeyer said. “But all head injuries are different.”

Sheppard waited for her to ask him about Ronon. About the guy that his brain-damaged overactive imagination had created. She didn’t and he looked at her in confusion.

“You need to focus on reality,” Heightmeyer said, noting his expression. “I don’t think it’s valuable to explore –”

“Delusions?”

“Events that didn’t happen,” she said, firmly.  “It’s more important to get you situated on what you lost.”

Sheppard _had_ lostRonon. He’d lost Atlantis and everyone on it.  But he knew she wasn’t talking about that. So he just nodded.

~

Lam said he could go home soon.

At first, Sheppard grinned. “Finally,” he told her.

Being trapped in a tiny infirmary room with no privacy and nothing to do hadn’t even been bothering him as much as it should have. It was kind of normal, in as normal as long term infirmary stays could be.

But then he realized he had absolutely no idea what she meant by ‘home.’

“Where?” he asked her.

Lam hesitated. “Your house, colonel.”

He kind of glared at her. She should know by now that he wasn’t playing stupid. “I have a house?”

Sheppard did have a house. A house with Teyla, of course. They’d bought it two years ago. Mitchell was the one that bothered to sit down and explain it to him. He said it was a nice place, in a good neighborhood with good schools. Sheppard boggled at him when he mentioned that, but the man ignored him.

“Congratulations,” Mitchell said. “You’re a grown up homeowner.” Sheppard decided the appropriate thing to do was glare at him.  “No, really,” Mitchell said. “I think you’re the only SG team leader who’s evolved beyond an apartment.”

Sheppard didn’t say anything and Mitchell kept talking.

“So, the docs are letting you go?”

Sheppard nodded.

“You must be better then,” Mitchell prompted.

For this, Sheppard made a face at him. “You just had to describe my house to me,” he reminded him. “I still don’t remember anything.”

Mitchell’s gaze shifted awkwardly. “Maybe a familiar environment will help,” he said cheerily.

“Don’t I spend most of my time here?” Sheppard retorted. “Don’t we all? How much time do I even spend on Earth?”

Mitchell scowled. “As much as anyone else,” he said. “C’mon, just be glad you’re getting out of here.”

“Am I going to be allowed to come back?” Sheppard demanded. Mitchell looked confused. “If I leave the SGC today,” he rushed on, “aren’t they just going to mail me my discharge papers?”

“You don’t know that,” Mitchell said, sounding artificially calm. “You could still get better –”

“They don’t let pilots with a psychiatric history of forgetting five years do anything,” Sheppard interrupted. “You _know_ that.”

Mitchell fell silent, his face grim. Before he could reply, Teyla and Lam arrived.

“Ready to go?” Lam asked, cheerfully.

“Yeah.” Sheppard hopped off his gurney. “It’s been fun,” he told her. “I’ll see you around.”

Lam smiled. “Don’t get too emotional, colonel. You’ll still be coming back for your medical check ups and to see Kate.”

Sheppard hadn’t expected that. “Yeah?”

Mitchell clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah!”

“So I don’t accidentally spill national security secrets to civilians?” Sheppard guessed.

“Because we are the best medical care available,” Lam corrected him. “Now get out of my infirmary.”

“Here,” Teyla said, handing him a black skull cap.

“What?”

“For your head,” she said.

“So you don’t scare the little children,” Mitchell said, laughing.

Sheppard followed Teyla out of the Mountain. He wasn’t sure how he felt, or how he was supposed to feel. Well, there was a solid pang of resentment when Teyla stopped at the security station to sign him out like he was a mental patient. Which he supposed he was, but it still sucked.

“You should keep the receipt,” he muttered.

He was surprised she got the reference. “No,” Teyla said. “I am satisfied with my purchase. It has a lifetime warranty.”

Involuntarily, Sheppard grinned and Teyla smiled back at him.

~

Teyla’s car was in the staff parking lot. And Sheppard hadn’t even gotten to thinking about the fact that she would have a car.

He sure as hell didn’t expect a bright yellow Volkswagon convertible bug.  

“This is your car,” he said, when she held up her keys and the lights blinked.

“Yes.” She was looking at him expectantly.

“I let you get _this car_?”

“You do not let me do anything,” Teyla said mildly, but she sounded more amused than anything else.

“Okay,” he said, fairly.

“You do not like it,” she said.

“Yeah,” Sheppard replied.

“Good.” Teyla opened the driver’s side door. “You did not like it before.”

Slowly, Sheppard followed suit and opened shotgun. “Teyla, it’s –”

“You have a truck,” Teyla interrupted as he got in. “Which you do not like me to drive.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said. That was better. That was sensible. It was the among the first things to make sense since he’d woken up.

“Who taught you to drive?” he asked, buckling his seatbelt as Teyla started the engine.

“You did,” Teyla said, and then the tires squealed.

~

“I see why I don’t like you to drive my truck,” Sheppard said, when the bug finally rolled to a stop. He unclenched his hand from around the arm rest.

Teyla made a little face, sort of a smile. “Welcome home,” she said.

Sheppard raised his eyes from the dashboard where he’d be waiting for the airbag to explode in his face and looked out the windshield.

Mitchell had been right. Sheppard had had a little trouble paying attention during the drive, what with expecting to be violently ejected from the vehicle at any moment. They were in a suburban neighborhood with nice pastel-painted family-sized houses and now they were parked in front of one.

Teyla opened her door and turned to look at him.

“Home sweet home,” he said, mostly to himself. A thought flashed across his mind. “Um. We don’t have any kids, do we?”

An emotion Sheppard couldn’t identify flitted over Teyla’s face. “No,’ she said, calmly. “I would have told you.”

“Yeah,” he said, finding the handle on his own door. “Okay.” He knew Teyla wouldn’t spring that kind of surprise on him, but the question had come out his mouth anyway.

“What about, like a dog?” he asked, getting out of the car.

On the other side of the vehicle, Teyla looked at him across the front of the car. “No,” she said. “You say we are not home enough.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Fish?”

That got a smile and an eye roll out of Teyla, who didn’t answer.

Sheppard hadn’t lived much in non-military – or non-Atlantis – housing. Even when he’d been married to Nancy. He didn’t know what he was supposed to think as he followed Teyla up the driveway. Maybe the house would fix his fried brain cells and all the memories he was supposed to have would come flooding back.

It didn’t.

Teyla unlocked the front door and held it open for him. Sheppard stepped inside.

It was just a house. Kind of sparsely furnished – not much on the walls of the living room he’d entered. Big ass TV, though, and a large, comfy looking yellow sofa.

Teyla glanced at his face, maybe hoping to see a flash of recognition. Disappointment flicked across her expression before she forced it away.

“Nice place,” Sheppard offered.

Teyla tried to smile, but wouldn’t look at him as she turned around and shut the door. This must really, really suck for her, Sheppard realized. He stood awkwardly in one place while she pulled the deadbolt and chain across the door.

“I have not been home much,” Teyla said, clearing her throat. “Lately.” She tipped her head towards another room. “I think there may be pets in the refrigerator, now.”

For a second, Sheppard blinked at her, then he got it. He grinned and let out a small laugh.

“You may look around,” Teyla told him, maybe sensing he wanted to ask permission but knew how dumb that was.

“Okay,” Sheppard said, but then he followed her into the kitchen, anyway.

There was more stuff in the kitchen than Sheppard had ever had in his life. All he’d ever owned was a crappy blender. He didn’t know what half the devices sitting on the kitchen countertop were. The only things he recognized were the blender and the crockpot. And they were all the same color, a bright yellow. Teyla followed his eyes.

“Wedding gifts,” she said. “That is your custom,” she reminded him, as wondering if he still knew that.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Sam and Vala helped me,” she paused, searching for the word. “register?”

“Yeah,” he said, again.

“Mostly Vala,” Teyla went on, sort of smirking. “I do not know how to use most of them.” She continued to watch his face, maybe waiting for him to remember any of this before she had to tell him. “We do not cook often.”

That was the Teyla he knew.

She turned her back to him, opening the fridge.

“You say we are the people for whom the readymade section of the deli counter was designed,” she said.

“Sounds about right,” he said. The kitchen was far too clean and tidy-looking to see much use, even if it was filled with equipment. He was glad this Teyla hadn’t turned into Martha Stewart, despite appearances.

Teyla made an unhappy noise from inside the refrigerator. “This has liquefied,” she said, straightening up and looking back at him. She seemed embarrassed, though he didn’t think she had reason to be. “I will clean this up,” she said. “You should look around our home. Maybe it will help.”

That sounded kind of like an order.

“Okay,” he said, feeling her eyes on him until he exited the kitchen.

The house was large. Big enough for two people, big enough for a family. It was beyond weird to know that he lived here. He didn’t recognize any of the furniture on the first floor. The artwork looked kind of folksy. Maybe it was Athosian, or maybe it reminded Teyla of Athosian stuff. But over all, the place was tidy and sparse. He guessed they weren’t home a lot, or it just didn’t look lived in since he’d been hospitalized for the past few months.

They had a lot of videogame equipment. Stuff Sheppard didn’t even recognize. And Teyla let it fill up the living room. Maybe she liked it, too.

Sheppard found a staircase leading down and took it. He didn’t know that there’d been anything in the basement, but he went anyway.

A lot of his stuff was in the basement.  His golf clubs, his surfboard. Except now he had two? Two sets of skis, too, and two kayaks stacked on top of one another. The second one of everything was for Teyla, of course, and he felt like a moron for even having to think about it.

He’d played golf with her on the Atlantis piers once or twice. Well, done the driving range thing, anyway. She hadn’t really understood it, but at least she hadn’t kicked his ass at it like Ronon had.

Sheppard turned around and went back upstairs. It took an educated guess to find the route to the top story. He circled the hallway and took the stairs up. His eyes landed on the wall and he stumbled. His Johnny Cash poster was affixed to the wall alongside the stairs. Put up with tape or something, not framed or anything. Sheppard glanced at it for a second and kept moving.

The upstairs looked a little more…lived in. Still tidy, which was probably Teyla’s doing. But there was an office with stacks of papers all over the desk, more Sheppard’s style. He took a seat. The chair was leather and high-backed, and it was comfortable enough that Sheppard had probably sat in it a lot for the cushion to start molding to his shape.

The papers were domestic stuff like the electricity bill. Sheppard sat there for a second, half because it was a really nice chair and half because he wondered if the memory of mundane tasks like paying taxes would come rushing back.

He kept having these thoughts. That he would see or hear or hell _smell_ something, and then he would remember all of this. And every time he thought that, nothing changed.

Sheppard poked mindlessly at the paperwork on the desktop. A lot of bills. Junk mail. Underneath it all was a calendar, the big kind Sheppard always bought and inevitably ended up buried. He had to think about what month it was – it didn’t really matter on Atlantis, after all – and realized the thing was about six months behind. He scanned the days, finding the occasional hand-written appointment. Doctor’s appointments, mostly, which was kind of odd. He didn’t recognize the names, of course. Weird.

There were a couple of photos on the desktop, too. One of him and Teyla, in civvies, smiling at the camera. It was too tight a shot for him to tell where they were, but his arm was draped over Teyla and she was leaning into him. The intimacy was unmistakable. Sheppard looked at it, realized he hadn’t seen Teyla smile with that kind of sincerity since he’d woken up. Okay, that wasn’t true, she’d smiled brilliantly when he’d woken, but then he’d accused her of being an alien hallucination.

Bothered, Sheppard turned the photo face down. He knew that was both really immature and probably psychologically unhealthy, but he did it anyway.

There was another photo, hidden behind a pile of old Sports Illustrated. Apparently, Sheppard came up here to pretend to pay bills. He wondered if Playboy was around here somewhere, too. Sheppard brushed the magazines aside. This one was of him, Lorne, Ford, and that Lucy Hurst woman. His team, Sheppard realized. At some kind of official function where the three men were in uniform and the anthropologist was in a pantsuit. Okay. Sheppard looked at it, too. The team – his team –  was smiling, seemed to like each other well enough. And he’d bothered to get it framed and put it on his desk. Or maybe someone had done it for him.

And there was even less reason that this one should bother him even more, but it did. Sheppard turned it upside down, too, and let the Sports Illustrateds slide on top of it. He was all about subtlety.

There wasn’t anything else to poke around, though Sheppard guessed there was probably a laptop hidden somewhere under the papers. He got up, pushed the chair back in, and left the room.

It was very tempting to go back downstairs and avoid finding his and Teyla’s bedroom. The house wasn’t making him feel better. It was just weird and unsettling. He could see himself living here. It was nice. That didn’t make it any less weird.

Unfortunately, Sheppard stumbled upon something much more bizarre. He opened the closed door next to the office and found himself in a room that was almost completely empty. The blinds were up, allowing the sun to spill in the through the windows. The walls were a gentle yellow; the color coupled with the sunshine seemed to make the room glow.

Sheppard blinked against the brightness and when his eyes could focus again, he saw the lone object sitting on the floor of the room.

It was a cradle.

Not a real cradle, it was made of wicker or something. It was set in the center of the room with a light yellow, woven baby blanket peeking over the edge.

Sheppard took a startled step forward to look, even though he knew rationally that there wasn’t anything – anybody – in it.

And there wasn’t, just the blanket arranged carefully against the bottom.

Sheppard heard light footsteps behind him and he looked sharply over his left shoulder.

Teyla was standing in the doorway, her face uncertain. For a second, Sheppard just blinked at her. He tried to get his thoughts together to ask a question more tactfully than ‘what the hell is this?’

“Are you pregnant?” It came out bluntly, but he didn’t think he sounded upset about it.

Teyla’s face flickered, as if she were forcefully staying calm. Maybe he did sound mad.

“I mean –” He waved his hand at the wicker cradle. It was fairly obviously what he meant.

Teyla stepped into the room and moved to his side. “No,” she said, voice calm. “I would have told you.” Calm and honest.

“Okay.” But he glanced at her stomach, anyway. She looked slender as always.

“We were trying to start a family,” she said, then. “Before you were hurt.”

“Oh.” He looked back at the cradle.

“It is an Athosian tradition,” Teyla said, after a moment. “To make a place for the child. It encourages the Ancestors to help you conceive.” She paused. “You think it is superstitious nonsense.”

“I do?” He was trying very hard not to think anything. He’d been ignoring the fact that he was married to Teyla; he could ignore the fact that they’d been trying to have a baby.

“You do,” Teyla said, confidently. She gave him a tiny smile. “I should have warned you before you came upstairs.”

He shrugged, but her explanation – _to help_ _you conceive_ – was echoing in his head. “Were we having trouble?” he asked. “Conceiving?”

Teyla’s smile dimmed. “Yes,” she said, shortly.

He had absolutely no idea what to say to that and suddenly Teyla looked really sad. “I’m sorry,” he offered.

She didn’t look any happier. And of course, he didn’t know any of this.

Abruptly, Teyla reached for the hem of her shirt and raised it as if to undress.

Sheppard averted his eyes. “Hey…” he began.

“I was injured,” Teyla said, and he looked at her. She was holding the shirt hem just below her breasts, exposing her stomach.

She wasn’t pregnant. But she was scarred; unmistakable dark pink jagged circles against her golden skin, accompanied by messy surgical incisions. 

“Atlantis,” Sheppard said, dumbly.

“Athos,” Teyla corrected. She dropped her shirt and pulled it straight, the ugly red scars vanishing from his view.

“You were shot,” he said. She looked at him like he’d remembered that, and he had to shake his head. “What happened?”

“It was an accident,” she said, crossing her arms over the wounds as if he could still see them.

“ _We_ shot you,” Sheppard continued. No one else had handguns.

“It was an accident,” she repeated.

He remembered reading the mission report; it hadn’t specified that the reason they’d brought Teyla back to the Milky Way was because they’d shot her.

“That is why,” Teyla continued, maybe sensing he was staring off into space. “We were having trouble.” She spoke slowly and precisely, words that probably weren’t hers: “My reproductive organs have a lot of scar tissue.”

“Oh.” He forced his thoughts back to the present. “I’m sorry.”

“ _You_ did not shoot me,” Teyla said. “You and Dr. Beckett saved my life.”

“That wasn’t in the report,” he said, honestly. She was looking at him for a reaction he couldn’t give her. “I didn’t know.”

Teyla nodded. She didn’t look upset, just kind of frayed around the eyes.

“Come down stairs,” she said, beginning to back out of the room. “Forget about it.”

“Not a problem,” he said. She tilted her head, then realized what she’d said. “Poor choice of words,” he agreed, following her out.

~


	4. The Undone Years 4/7

Teyla had ordered Chinese food for dinner. She muttered something sheepish about there being nothing to eat in the fridge.

“Is there usually?” Sheppard asked her, sitting at their dining room table. She was at the head, he was next to her. He didn’t want to sit opposite and he didn’t know where he usually sat.

“No,” Teyla murmured. She shrugged. “I do not always understand how long food can stay in the refrigerator,” she said.

“Me, either,” Sheppard agreed.

Teyla looked at him. “I know,” she said, warmly. “We have a problem.”

Sheppard dropped his eyes. She wasn’t even saying anything –  talking about anything –  and it was so weird.  Affection. Intimacy. _Teyla_.

He’d been happy to get out of the SGC infirmary. But he hadn’t thought about what it’d be like to be in a home that wasn’t his, with the spouse he didn’t remember. He didn’t know how he was going to do this without losing his mind.

Teyla seemed to realize how awkward it was, because Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran showed up with their Chinese food. It made their first night home – or so everyone else thought it was Sheppard’s _home_ – a little easier. Between the two of them, neither Sheppard nor Teyla really had to talk.

It gave Sheppard a chance to see how other people interacted with Teyla. She and Vala really were friends. That was readily apparent, as much as Sheppard totally wouldn’t have expected it.

He was glad that she had friends – even if Vala and Jackson weren’t exactly his first choice for dinner guests. That was important.

Also of importance was the fact that Jackson had brought beer. Beer the archaeologist didn’t seem all that interested in, which meant it was for Sheppard. So friends or not, he did know something about Sheppard.

Except that alcohol was on Lam’s no-no list, along with driving and anything that could shake up his brain even more.

“Lam said no,” he told Jackson, when the man shoved a bottle at him.

Jackson looked confused. “Why?”

Sheppard shrugged. He paused, then twisted off the top, anyway.

Things must have been really different after the failed Atlantis mission. Sheppard had never given any thought to staying and working at the SGC – not even when the fucking Replicators had kicked them all out of Atlantis. The whole time he had known about the Stargate program, it had all been about Atlantis, about Pegasus, about the Wraith. His life had been about that, and about the people there.

He didn’t remember the life he had here, even if some of the same people were involved. And further, despite every session with Heightmeyer, he still found he didn’t particularly want to remember this life.

Jackson and Vala kept the conversation going, but eventually they moved off random crap like the weather or the last madcap adventure Vala had caused and on to topics Sheppard couldn’t really follow. He got up with the excuse of using the bathroom, except once he was out of the room he realized he didn’t actually know where it was.

So, Sheppard looped around and ended up drinking his beer in the kitchen, alone. He wasn’t hiding or anything. But he didn’t know where the bathroom was nor did he want to ask. His absence was probably really obvious, but he was a crazy amnesiac with a brain injury, so there.

He figured someone could come find him and make sure he hadn’t freaked out and fled the house completely, but he didn’t expect it to be Vala.

She came swaggering in to the kitchen and glanced around dramatically, like she couldn’t immediately see him leaning against the refrigerator.

“Oh,” she said, brightly. “There you are!”

Sheppard grunted and went to sip his beer, except it was getting low.

Vala moved closer. “Search parties,” she said, “Daniel’s downstairs, Teyla’s upstairs.” She squinted at him. “Think they may have called in to the SGC to set up a perimeter.”

Sheppard scowled at her. He didn’t particularly feel like confessing how hard it was to be in a room while they talked about stuff he had allegedly experienced, too.

“Couldn’t find the bathroom,” he said, which didn’t feel good to confess, either.

That didn’t fly with Vala. She tilted her head. “I don’t think it’s in here,” she said, thoughtfully.

He shrugged, drank the last drop of his beer and put the bottle down on the counter.

“You know,” Vala said, sidling over and leaning against the opposite side of the fridge. “I lost my memory once.”

She waited for a response, but he didn’t give her one. This was a story he didn’t know, either because it hadn’t mattered or it hadn’t happened in the universe he knew.

“Goa’uld bitch,” Vala said. “Kidnapped me and accidentally fried my brain.”

“Explains a lot,” Sheppard said, unkindly.

This got him an irritated sideways glance, but nothing else.

“I didn’t remember who I was,” Vala continued. “Or who my friends were. And I may have been a little…paranoid.”

“I’m not paranoid,” Sheppard shot back, since he hadn’t accused anyone of being an alien hallucination in months. He hadn’t even mentioned his Ascension theory to anyone.

Vala ignored him. “But I wasn’t nearly as miserable as you.” Sheppard opened his mouth, but she went on. “I made new friends. I was a waitress!”

“What-“ Sheppard interrupted.

“I could get you a job,” Vala continued. “Sal’s a nice man. But you would have to wear a hat. Your head is scary.”

Sheppard waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “Are you done?”

“No,” Vala snapped. “Have you had sex yet?”

He sank back against the fridge, closing his eyes. “Do you have anything helpful at all to say?”

Vala took that as permission to jab him in the chest with her finger ‘til he opened his eyes and swatted her hand away.

“You’re being a jerk,” she said. “You need to relax. You like it here.” She paused. “I can’t volunteer my services, there’s a conflict of interest.”

“You’re a lunatic,” Sheppard retorted. He went to grab her finger, but she was faster than him and he missed.

“I’m the lunatic?” Vala questioned. She put her hands on hips and tilted her head. “I’m not the one acting like my spouse is holding me hostage.”

Sheppard gritted his teeth. “I’m not-” he began.

“You _are_ ,” Vala interrupted.

“I don’t remember!” Sheppard yelled, then snapped his mouth shut because Teyla and Jackson had to have heard that. He really didn’t want to have a confrontation in his kitchen with its stupid yellow appliances and Vala pushing all of his buttons. “I don’t remember any of this and I don’t want to be here,” he hissed, lower. It came bubbling out without his permission. “I don’t want to be here.”

Vala didn’t look particularly horrified. Her eyes slid sideways, towards the entry way where Teyla and Jackson were now standing. Both of whom looked considerably less happy.

“Shit,” Sheppard said, and decided it was time to stare at the floor.  
  
He half-expected to get packed back to Cheyenne for the outburst. It was entirely possible Jackson and Teyla had a discussion about doing just that, but it didn’t happen. In fact, the two of them went about pretending nothing at all had occurred. Vala did no such thing, but at least confined her opinion to knowing, judgmental looks while Jackson made excuses about leaving and forcibly yanked Vala out of the kitchen.

Sheppard stayed leaning against the refrigerator not looking at anybody. The Chinese food got cleaned up, which didn’t take long. Jackson took the leftover beer with him when he and Vala left, and that sucked. The alcohol had nothing to do with Sheppard’s meltdown and having it around might actually help him mellow.

 

“Sorry,” Sheppard muttered, when he and Teyla were finally alone again. It sounded really inadequate. “Vala doesn’t really…” he paused. “…help.”

“I know,” Teyla replied, after a moment. She sounded mostly neutral. “It’s alright. Daniel asked her not to ‘help’ any more.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said. “Sorry.”

It wasn’t that late, maybe a little past ten. But Teyla looked at him and stated, “You look tired. Maybe you should sleep now.”

Sheppard nodded. “Okay.” He went on. “I’ll take the couch.”

Now, Teyla looked confused. “What?” she asked.

“The couch,” Sheppard repeated. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

For some reason, this completely baffled Teyla, because she continued to blink at him.

“Why?” she asked.

He was too tense to sugarcoat it. “Because it’s weird,” he said, heavily. “It’ll be easier.”

“Not for me,” Teyla said, brow creased.

Sheppard shrugged. “Just pretend I was a jerk.” Possibly she didn’t have to pretend at all.

Teyla crossed her arms. “I do not understand,” she said, plainly.

It was hard for Sheppard to believe that he’d never ended up sacked out on the couch before. Except that maybe Teyla didn’t know she had the option and he’d never informed her. Way to be a jackass, Sheppard.

“It’s an Earth custom,” he said, still not really looking her. “Or at least an American one. When one, um, partner is an asshole, he has to sleep on the couch so that –” _he knows he won’t be getting any sex that night_ , yeah he wasn’t saying that – “everyone knows where they stand.”

“I know where I stand,” Teyla replied, evenly. “And I would like my husband to sleep in our bed.”

He wasn’t going to fight with her. Sheppard didn’t have the energy and there wasn’t any point. Whatever.

Sheppard shrugged in acquiescence, and even though he was giving in Teyla’s expression didn’t lighten at all. Vala’s description of his behavior, that he was acting like a _hostage_ , rang in his head.

“Okay,” he said, trying to sound cooperative and nice and not like a selfish and crazy asshole.  “Okay.”

~

It wasn’t as bad as he thought. It wasn’t really…anything. It was just lying in a bed – which was at least two times as big as his bed on Atlantis – with Teyla beside him. She didn’t try anything – and yes, thinking like that made him feel like an insecure virginal teenage fucking girl – or even want to talk. He guessed after the scene in the kitchen, she probably didn’t really want to hear him say anything else.

He was still tense. And so was she. In the silence, he could hear her breathing too lightly to be sleeping. Sheppard couldn’t relax and even though he felt drained and exhausted, he didn’t feel sleepy.

Sheppard was fairly sure they spent a couple of hours lying in the darkness, not sleeping, listening to each other not sleep.

Eventually, though, he opened his eyes and it was morning. He must have drifted off. Daylight streaked in through the windows. Sheppard had no idea what time it was, but Teyla was gone from the other side of the bed.

He found her in the kitchen, already dressed. Sheppard had yanked on a pair of jeans and t-shirt he found in bureau in his bedroom. Their bedroom. He’d slept in sweats, which he never did but he’d also never slept with Teyla like that before.

Teyla smiled at him when he came downstairs. “Good morning,” she said, warmly. Evidently pretending he hadn’t freaked out last night.

“Hey,” Sheppard said. He ran a hand through his hair. Or where he would have had hair if it hadn’t been shaved down to stubble and short little bristles.

“Breakfast?” she asked him.

He had no idea what their morning ritual was. Hell, if they were both on SG teams, he’d bet they rarely had breakfast on Earth let alone together.

“Um, okay.”

“There’s cereal,” Teyla said, flatly. “And I know how to make toast.”

Sheppard grinned. “Sounds good.”

They ate together in the dining room, where Sheppard had run away the night before. But it wasn’t as awkward, this time. Maybe because Vala and Jackson weren’t there. Friends or not, he didn’t know them. And as much as he didn’t know this Teyla, he still knew her.

“What day is it?” Sheppard asked, when he was halfway through his cornflakes. It had occurred to him that he didn’t know, hadn’t know for a while. Maybe since he’d woken up.

“Thursday,” Teyla answered, curiously. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Just wanted to know.”

It was kind of strange that Jackson and Vala had been on the planet to come around the day before. Not that the SGC kept anything like a normal schedule, but sometimes they did try to get people home for the weekends.

And Teyla was on a SG team, too.

Somehow, Teyla read his mind before he was able to ask the question.

“I have taken a leave of absence,” she said.

“For how long?” Sheppard asked.

Teyla didn’t answer immediately. “Indefinitely.”

Until Sheppard no longer needed a babysitter, was what she didn’t say.

“We’re in the same boat,” he said, after a moment. “Then.”

Silent, Teyla gave a small nod. She looked uncertain what reaction she should give.

“That’s not really fair to you,” Sheppard said.

“There is no place I would rather be,” Teyla replied, completely sincerely.

Sheppard looked down at his cereal, because he didn’t really have anything to say to that.

~

There wasn’t much to do. Sheppard wasn’t in the mood to play video games and his motor skills were still kind of fucked up, so even when Teyla hopefully suggested it as something to fill the awkward silences, it didn’t really work out.

Teyla tried to orient him a little to their home, taking him on a tour of the house and explaining every piece of artwork and every book. They avoided the baby room, thankfully.

The art was stuff that reminded her of Athos, as Sheppard had guessed. They’d bought all the furniture together, in trips that Sheppard didn’t remember but apparently involved Teyla attempting to barter at Ikea. That sounded interesting.

They had a lot of yellow stuff. The couch, the kitchen things, bath towels, even their bed sheets. Sheppard didn’t get it. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Teyla even wear anything yellow. And it wasn’t exactly his favorite color. He didn’t want to ask her about it, though. It seemed dumb.

“Would you like to look at some pictures?” Teyla asked, when they were back in the living room and she had run out of stories to tell about the furniture.

“Okay,” Sheppard agreed, since refusing outright was probably not okay.

Teyla put a hand up to her face, like maybe she regretted suggesting it. “Sam made a book for us,” she said.

“An album?” Sheppard translated.

“Yes,” Teyla said. “Of our wedding.”

Sheppard wished he’d said no. Instead, he sat down on the couch. “Let’s see it.”

He could keep the crazy freak outs on the inside; Teyla wouldn’t have to see them.

Teyla was looking at him, eyes assessing his face. “You do not have to,” she offered. Maybe he wasn’t hiding it all that well.

“Can’t hurt,” he said.

Slowly, Teyla retrieved a glossy white binder from the bookshelf. He hadn’t seen it before. She handed it over and took a seat beside him on the couch. Sheppard noticed she gave him plenty of space, allowing enough distance that a third person could have sat between them.

“This is your tradition,” Teyla said, gesturing at the binder with her head. “I did not really understand it and Sam said you would not observe it so she did it for us.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.

He knew a little about weddings. Not that he’d done much for his. Deployed until like a week before and most of the organizational tasks were, well, for chicks. Sheppard wondered what had happened to that album – Nancy had probably trashed it.

Teyla cleared her throat. Sheppard must have been staring off into space. Abruptly, he opened the binder on his lap, steeling himself to at the very least not show it if the images inside wigged him out.

The dress was yellow, too. Teyla’s wedding dress. 

“Huh,” he said, out loud.  Teyla glanced at him curiously. “You like yellow,” he said, which was in itself a fairly harmless observation.

The corners of Teyla’s mouth crinkled. “Athosian tradition,” she informed him, but she was speaking like he’d known this at some point.  “I did not see the point of wearing white for virginity when that was not the case.”

Sheppard kind of choked. “Practical,” he said. “Um, you look good.”

That wasn’t actually true. Teyla looked thin, nearly swimming in the big yellow gown. Thin and her skin was closer to grey than golden brown. She was also sitting down in most of the pictures. And when she was standing, she was holding very tightly to Sheppard in the photos. Teyla was gorgeous as ever, but she didn’t look healthy.

“When was this?” he asked.

“About four years ago,” Teyla replied. She was getting a lot better at hiding her disappointment when he didn’t know stuff.

The scars on her stomach flashed in his mind. “You were still hurt,” he said, dipping with his chin down at her lap.

Teyla didn’t deny it. “I was recovering,” she said

Sheppard did the math in his head. Their wedding had to have been months and months after the return – the rescue – from Pegasus. Maybe a whole year. But Teyla still looked gutshot.

“It must have been bad,” he said.

Teyla shrugged. Maybe she thought he was avoiding discussing the wedding, that he preferred to talk about gunshot wounds than their marriage.

“I am well now,” was all she said.

“Okay,” Sheppard said, and dropped it. He went back to looking at the photos.

It was a wedding. There wasn’t much else to say. Sheppard recognized all the participants. He was in his dress blues, of course. Air Force blue and Teyla’s favorite shade of buttery yellow made for a totally bizarre combination. The Sheppard in the photos looked…well, happy, he guessed. Not really focusing on the camera, even when looking right at it.

Weddings were about the bride and Teyla didn’t look particularly comfortable in the spotlight. Athosians probably didn’t do it the same way. And she was sick. Not sick, but _hurt_. He could read it in her face under the smile and in her posture.

Besides the pain, he recognized the expression on her face. He didn’t remember a single other thing in the pictures, but this he’d seen before. Usually, he was right by her side when he saw it.

Whenever they had a trading mission where their Pegasus allies required some kind of elaborate song-and-dance ritual before handing over the goods, Teyla’s face looked like that. Part hesitance, part carefully concealed bemusement behind a willing smile. It was like that, except she looked less confident and way more confused. This wasn’t her galaxy.

Usually, when Sheppard saw that face, McKay was behind them squawking about whatever ridiculousness they were acting out. Ronon would be next to him, too cool to be bothered.

Ronon was not at the wedding. Duh. Neither was McKay, which given the bile in his ‘not-actually-glad-you’re-alive’ e-mail shouldn’t have been surprising. Sheppard still found himself scanning the pictures of the guests for his face.

Weir wasn’t there, either. But Carson Beckett was. He appeared to be playing the role of father of bride, or he was just helping Teyla stand since it really didn’t look like she could do it by herself.

As Ford had claimed, he was a groomsman. So was Dave.

Sheppard blinked. His brother hadn’t even stood up at his wedding. Er, his first wedding.

Dad was there, too. And there were photos of the three Sheppard men together with no one fighting, scowling, or even glaring at each other. Which was a freaking miracle.

“Huh,” Sheppard said, out loud, his finger drifting over the faces of his father and brother.

“Hmm?” asked Teyla.

“Dad,” Sheppard said.

“Yes,” Teyla said, sounding like she hadn’t quite interpreted the inflection in his voice.

Sam Carter and Vala Mal Doran had stood up for Teyla. Carter in her uniform and Vala in a massive poofy purple dress topped with a tiara. She looked to be having a _great_ time, maybe even making herself the center of attention. Teyla might not have minded.

“Where was this?” Sheppard asked. It didn’t look familiar, some place indoors with indistinct corporate décor.

“A hotel near the SGC,” Teyla answered. She gave a reminiscent smile. “It was one of the first times I was allowed off base.”

Sheppard looked at her.

“I am an alien,” Teyla reminded him.

“Yeah, but –” he pointed at the pictures – “you can barely stand up by yourself.”

Teyla shrugged.

“That’s why you don’t remember Rodney or Elizabeth,” Sheppard said, realization dawning. “You were injured.”

“I was not conscious during most of the time you were on Athos,” Teyla confirmed. She made a face. “Or for the first few months here.”

“Jesus.” He was looking at her stomach again, covered as it was by her clothing.

“I was not in pain. I do not remember it,” she assured him.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, closing the wedding album. “Me, either.”

~

It got less awkward. Mostly because Sheppard didn’t spend a lot of thinking about the fact that he and Teyla were supposed to be together, married, trying to have a kid. Stuff was clarifying itself in his head. He didn’t remember it, but he understood what had happened in Pegasus now. They had the wrong address to Atlantis, ending up on some shitstorm planet. His soldiers had freaked about the Wraith on Athos and shot anything that moved. Teyla had moved.

The Atlantis mission had failed. The Wraith had continued to sleep. The Athosians had been culled. Sheppard, the entire surviving mission crew, and the lone alien woman they were responsible for nearly killing had been rescued by the Prometheus and brought home.

It wasn’t that complicated.

It was kind of plausible.

Why Sheppard didn’t remember any of it, why he had crystal clear, vivid memories for five entire years of everything going _completely_ differently…

Heightmeyer’s ‘disassociative fugue’ diagnosis wasn’t helpful. He didn’t think his brain worked like that. It just didn’t.

The fourth night Sheppard was home, he started talking to Teyla.

He was listening to her breathe next to him, almost steadily enough to be asleep but not quite.

“Hey,” he said, causing her to jerk in place like she’d really been almost out. In the dimness, he could see Teyla turned her face towards him.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, instantly wide awake and alarmed.

“No,” he said, quickly. “I just…” Now he felt dumb bringing it up, but he couldn’t just tell her to go back to sleep. “Um,” Sheppard continued, rushing on so he wouldn’t stop himself. “Does the word ‘Runner’ mean anything to you?”

Teyla softly cleared her throat. Sheppard felt the mattress move as she shifted her weight. The sheets rustled as Teyla turned toward him.

She didn’t speak immediately. He imagined the question totally baffled her.

“Yes,” Teyla said, after a minute. She was speaking slowly, like she was translating a foreign language for him. “You were a runner, yes? While you were a student.”

For a second, Sheppard blinked at her. “Oh,” he realized. “In high school. Yeah.” He’d never told Teyla that. Never told _his_ Teyla. Sheppard gave a short, humorless chuckle. “No,” he said. Nowhere close to that. “Not here. In Pegasus.”

“In Pegasus?” Teyla repeated, curiously.

That didn’t sound promising. Sheppard let his head tilt back, ready to tell her to forget it.

Teyla was silent for a second. Then, “In Pegasus,” she said, still slowly but with slightly more bewilderment. “There is a legend.”

Sheppard closed his eyes. He kept them shut while she continued.

“A legend about men taken by the Wraith who are not fed upon,” Teyla said. “They are chased. Hunted for sport.”

Sheppard felt her move, the mattress under him swaying as she sat up sharply in bed. He heard a click and then brightness flashed against his eyelids. She must have turned on the bedside lamp.

Opening his eyes, Sheppard squinted into the light.

“I do not think I ever told you of that,” Teyla said. She was staring at him with wide eyes, almost accusingly. “There is no reason I would have.”

Sheppard raised one hand to his face, shielded it from the lamp light. He nodded, didn’t answer.

“Why did you ask?” Teyla questioned. She paused. “How did you know to ask?”

Sheppard rolled on to his side, so that he was facing her.

“I met one,” he said, bluntly. “And he’s not here.”

Teyla stared at him. “You remember someone…” she trailed off, unable to figure out how to talk about the stuff that had happened only in his head.

He didn’t make her try. “Yeah,” he said. “We met him in Pegasus. We cut out the tracker.”

Teyla was just blinking at him.

“You,” Sheppard continued. “And I, and Carson, and McKay – that guy you don’t know.”

He paused, cast a glance at Teyla. Sheppard almost wished the lights weren’t on. In the darkness, he wouldn’t have been able to see every disbelieving crease in her face.

“That did not happen,” Teyla said, gently. Her eyes slid sideways, like she was considering calling Heightmeyer for help.

Sheppard rolled on to his back again, folding his arms above the sheet and not looking at her anymore.

“He was Running for seven years before we found him,” Sheppard said.

Teyla made an indecipherable noise. He waited. “It is a legend,” she said. “But that is too long.”

“I know,” Sheppard said, keeping his voice reasonable. Like he wasn’t arguing reality with her. “But if we didn’t find him, it’s been another _four_ years.”

Teyla was silent. Maybe she wasn’t willing to argue about reality with him.

Sheppard raised one arm and laid it over his eyes to block the lamp. “He’s still out there,” he said. “And it’s really bothering me.”

After a second, the bed squeaked as Teyla moved and there was another click as the she turned the light off. He felt her lying back down.

“I must have mentioned the legend to you,” she murmured, awkwardly.

Sheppard didn’t answer. He felt her lying stiffly next to him, awake and silent, for hours after that.

~

Teyla must have told Heightmeyer about Sheppard’s obsession with an imaginary friend. She didn’t bring it up, but all of sudden they decided he should spend a lot more time on base. Not just returning for therapy of various kinds, but for a totally bullshit job. It was to keep him busy, in case he truly was crazy, probably. Quicker response time in case he started talking to walls or tried to take a gun off an Airman.

His new job was reading reconnaissance team leader reports and flagging any incidents of military impropriety.

Uh-huh.

Ford claimed he’d actually had this duty for years. Ford – this young man who’d never taken an overdose of Wraith enzyme – was a really shitty liar.

Lorne and Mitchell were less willing to engage in the charade, but neither would they share his outrage

“Hey,” Mitchell tried. “You were worried about getting shitcanned, right?”

Sheppard glared at him. “This is better?”

Mitchell shrugged, helplessly.

“This really was your job,” Lorne said, in the awkward silence. “You, um, might not have done it very often, but General Jack O’Neill put you in charge of it. Really.”

“Why would he do that?” Sheppard demanded.

“I think the President wanted someone to do it,” Lorne muttered.

“O’Neill has a bizarre sense of humor,” Mitchell said.

~

In as much as the job was O’Neill’s way of screwing someone over politically and the SGC’s way of keeping an eye of Sheppard, at least it meant Sheppard got to stick around the SGC. The reports that he rubberstamped without reading were somewhat reassuring in that they weren’t squeezing him out anymore, either not fearing that he was going to flip out and call the Russians – or worse CNN –  with classified intel or thinking that they’d probably be able to stop him if he did.

Less awkward time at home with Teyla in the suburban 2.5 kids house with a goddamn nursery was good. He was probably an asshole for thinking that, but it was true. Ever since his confession about Ronon, Teyla looked at him differently. Sort of like she thought he was genuinely crazy. Which he apparently was, but he didn’t like it when Teyla obviously thought so. The _something’s-wrong-with-you_ expression on her face was really hard to look at.

Of course, as soon as he had that thought, stuff changed to make him regret it.

Teyla’s team had been going out into the field without her, for however long now. Months, Sheppard guessed. It’d been, well, a long time since he’d woken up that day in the infirmary. More than six months.

And suddenly they needed her back.

Teyla was horribly guilty about it. She and Cameron Mitchell broke the news to him together, like they thought it would upset him. People liked having Mitchell around when they thought Sheppard would get pissed. He wasn’t entirely sure why. Either they were really good friends or people thought Mitchell could pin Sheppard down long enough for someone to stab him with a sedative.

“We have had relations with this tribe for almost two years,” Teyla explained, twisting her hands nervously before her in a way he’d never seen before. “Trying to gain access to a cache of advanced technology abandoned in their territory.”

“Ancient tech?” Sheppard asked, perking up.

“No,” Mitchell said. “Snakes. Goa’uld hideout.”

“Oh.” Sheppard tried not to look disappointed. He was fairly sure the treasure at hand wasn’t supposed to be his business.

“I established contact with the leader,” Teyla said. “He will not allow SGC teams in to his territory without me.”

“Got a crush?” Sheppard joked.

Both Teyla and Cameron looked at him without any amusement and he dropped his chin. Evidently, this was serious. “Okay,” he said. “Well, you should go.”

Teyla sighed. “It will be a lengthy mission.”

“Okay.” Sheppard shrugged.

“The territory is far from the ‘Gate and the retrieval will take some time,” she continued. “I must stay for the duration.”

“It’ll be a while,” said Mitchell.

“How long?”

“Perhaps a month?” Teyla frowned. She looked worried again. “I do not wish to leave you.”

“I’ll be okay,” Sheppard said. He was trying very hard not to feel like they were treating him like a kid needing reassurance. “I have stuff to do, too.” He pointed at the pile of stupid files he wasn’t going to read sitting on the desk.

“You’re gonna have to stay at the SGC while she’s gone,” Mitchell said, bluntly. That must have been why he was here.

“Why?” Sheppard asked.

“Lam is concerned about you being on your own with –” Mitchell made a gesture by his own head that evidently was supposed to mean ‘scrambled brains.’

“I’m fine,” Sheppard retorted. He _was_ fine. The physical therapy had fixed his body and his hair was growing back. Other than the amnesia, which maybe was a big deal, he was _fine._

Teyla didn’t say anything.

“You can argue with Lam all you want,” Mitchell said. “I’m just telling you.”

Sheppard glowered at him, until he noticed Teyla’s face. “It’s fine,” he told her. “Clearly, I’ll have plenty of babysitters.”

~

Teyla’s mission was going to last way longer than a month. SG teams were pulling all sorts of Goa’uld crap out of that place and she had to stay ‘til it was done. Mitchell eventually told him that yeah, the chief guy did totally have a crush on her.

It was weird without her. Sheppard missed her. He also missed being allowed to leave the SGC, since as strange as the house had been, not being allowed to leave the base again was even stranger and creepy. But he mostly missed Teyla.

Lam gave him totally bullshit reasons for his confinement, like the possibility of seizure or sudden disorientation. The same reasons he wasn’t allowed to drive. Neither had happened yet, though maybe ‘amnesia’ covered ‘disorientation.’

His friends stuck around to make him feel less like a prisoner. SG-1 wasn’t going out in the field. Jackson and the archaeologists were up to their ears in the stuff coming back from Teyla’s mission. Sheppard’s own team, however, was going out. Without him, of course. So he didn’t see Ford or Lorne much, but the rest of SG-1 had taken over babysitting him. And it was _babysitting_ , no matter what they called it.

He was fairly sure Vala and Teal’c had more freedom of movement than he did at the moment. Which really didn’t seem fair.

They let him in on stuff that was probably team-only, like poker and movie night. Poker wasn’t fair since somehow they all knew his tells and he didn’t know theirs. Teal’c was inscrutable. Also, Vala cheated like crazy.

Movie night was okay, except it made Sheppard think of movie night on Atlantis and then he wasn’t okay at all. Getting upset over crappy rented DVD’s seemed like a surefire way to get booked back to the SGC for an intensive session with Heightmeyer, so Sheppard tried to hide it. In the dark, with Mitchell and Sam trying to explain “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” to the two aliens, Sheppard could sit on the couch and be inconspicuously self-pitying.

The shrink-ray would have caused McKay’s head to explode and at least an hour of ranting. Sheppard thought Mitchell’s technique of preemptively punching Carter in the arm every time she opened her mouth was pretty effective, except it would have just changed the topic of McKay’s complaints.

Carter might have developed mind-reading abilities.

 “Hey,” she said, barely taking her eyes off the screen. “I’m heading to a physics conference next week. We’re presenting an article on adapted Asgard tech and pretending it doesn’t work yet. I think your old friend Rodney McKay will probably be there.”

“Yeah?” Sheppard asked.

“It’s a trick,” Vala announced. “There’s no treasure hunt and it full of very boring, irritatingly intense scientists with no sense of humor.”

“You’re still banned,” Carter said, easily.

“Good,” retorted Vala.

“What do I have to do to get banned?” asked Mitchell.

“Touch things,” interjected Teal’c.

“Or people,” Vala added. “That works, too.”

“Can do,” Mitchell said. “The first one, anyway.”

Carter pointedly ignored them. “If you’re getting bored on base, it’s something to do,” she offered Sheppard. “Fair warning that it’s a lot of technobabble and people criticizing each other.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said, keeping his voice neutral. “Sounds good.”

~

The conference was actually very near Colorado Springs, Carter said because so many of the presenters were secretly related to the Stargate program. That meant no plane (or spaceship as the case may have been) and Lam had no reason to refuse him permission to go. It was just a short car ride.

After her initial offer, Carter seemed a little confused that he’d actually accepted. Sheppard tried not to seem eager.

“I have to warn you," Carter said in the car. "It's probably not your thing."

Sheppard was in the back seat. Dr. Bill Lee had shotgun next to Carter.

"In the past, she's usually tricked people," Lee agreed. "And then I get to hear about it all the way home." He glanced over his shoulder at Sheppard.

Sheppard shrugged. "Alternative is locked up in Cheyenne."

In the review mirror, Sheppard caught Carter pulling a face. No one liked it when he bitched about the fact he was essentially being held prisoner.

 

"Well, you'll get to see some of your old friends from the Atlantis mission," Carter said, lightly. "I think half the Science department will probably be there."

"Hmm," Sheppard said. He didn't want to advertise that his only interest in this trip was to see McKay. Everyone would know that was weird. They sure weren't 'old friends' according to most people's definitions.

~

The conference was actually just as boring as the rest of SG-1 had insinuated. Vala would probably have flipped out and caused some kind of chaos after five minutes. Sheppard could see that. Initially, Carter seemed to want him to stick close to her and Dr. Lee. Orders from Dr. Lam, probably. But it didn't take long for her to get totally distracted by all the science stuff and just nod at him when he made a vague 'I'm gonna take a walk' gesture at her.

Sheppard wandered around the conference center alone after that. He did recognize some of the Atlantis science staff. But they didn't recognize him. Or maybe they did and had no interest in talking to him precisely for that reason. He didn't know what kind of relationship they'd had. Maybe none. From what he'd read of the mission reports the months before the Prometheus had shown up to rescue them from Athos had mostly entailed cowering in the caves while rationing out food. In that situation, Sheppard didn't know that he'd have bothered to do anything except periodically yell at the civilians for doing stupid things.

Sheppard saw one face that made him halt in his tracks. He didn't know that he should approach. He hadn't really had the opportunity to interact with anyone who'd played a big part in his memories of Atlantis, outside Lorne and Ford. And they had different versions that still involved him being there for the past five years. The civilians that hadn't seen him in that time wouldn't have that baggage. And he didn't think Radek Zelenka had come back to the Stargate program after the Atlantis mission failed.

Slowly, Sheppard ambled over to the table where the Czech scientist was sitting. There was a poster with text boxes, graphs, and charts behind him, and two laptop screens set up as well. Zelenka was alone at the moment, which was probably for the best. He was looking down at one of the laptop screens and clicking at the keyboard. His face was irritated.

"Hey," Sheppard said, after he walked up.

Zelenka didn't look up. He was muttering angrily under his breath.

"Hey," Sheppard said, louder.

Zelenka jerked in place, then looked up. For a second he just blinked at Sheppard.

"Hey, Radek," Sheppard said.

"Um," Zelenka said. He shook his head. "Colonel Sheppard?"

"Yeah."

Zelenka was sort of squinting at him. "I didn't think you knew my first name," he said, surprised. "I didn't think you knew my name at all."

Sheppard didn't say anything.

"I mean," Zelenka said, awkwardly. "Hello."

"Hi," Sheppard replied. He had no idea what to say. He hadn't really planned anything.

"What are you doing here?" Zelenka asked, bluntly. Not angry or anything, which was probably good.

"I came with Colonel Carter," Sheppard answered. "Thought I'd see some of the old Atlantis crew."

Zelenka was staring at him. "Why?" He looked baffled.

Sheppard was wearing the same old skull cap they'd put on him the day they'd sent him home. Lam had said the patchwork on his head could come out soon, but hadn't done anything about it yet. Sheppard reached up and took of the cap. Zelenka instantly recoiled. Then, he winced.

"Sorry," he apologized. "What happened?"

"I hit my head," Sheppard said, keeping the cap off just long enough for Zelenka to get a good understanding of just how inadequate that statement was. "I don't remember the past five years."

"Oh," said Zelenka. "Ohhhh." His eyes were big.

"Yeah," Sheppard said. "Starting with our mission."

"Ah." Zelenka nodded. "I'm sorry."

Sheppard shrugged.

"You are here to remember, then?" Zelenka asked.

"Can't hurt," Sheppard said, although it was possible that Zelenka wouldn't react all that badly if Sheppard honestly told him how disinterested he was in remembering the past five years everyone else thought had happened.

"I don't know if I can help," Zelenka said, suddenly hurrying. "I am very busy." He pointed at the laptop he'd been focusing on. "My program is not working."

Sheppard guessed Zelenka didn't want to be the one to tell Sheppard how big a jerk he'd been to the civilians.

"Yeah," Sheppard said. "That's okay. People telling me about it hasn't really helped, anyway."

"Oh, okay." Zelenka was visibly relieved. "Are not supposed to talk about it in public, anyways. I would go to prison."

"Right."

There was silence for a second while Sheppard waited for Zelenka to say something and Zelenka fidgeted with the laptop's space bar.

"So, what are you up to now, Radek?"

"Um." Zelenka looked confused. "I teach at university. I am here on research project on..." he paused, nodded, then went on, "science."

Sheppard wasn't offended the man didn't think he'd understand. He seemed totally shocked that Sheppard cared enough to ask.

"Cool," he said. "I'm glad things are going well."

"Thanks," Zelenka said, but he didn't stop looking baffled. "Appreciate it."

Sheppard nodded, made as if to walk away. "Good to see you."

"Ah, yes, you, too," Zelenka said. "I am glad that you..." - he tapped his own head - "did not die." And that actually sounded kind of genuine.

"Thanks, Radek."

~


	5. The Undone Years 5/7

The encounter with Zelenka made Sheppard pause and reconsider his plan to track down McKay. At the very least, he should have something prepared to say. Sheppard got a cup of coffee and hid out in the audience of one of the presentation halls for a couple hours. Lam would have made a disapproving face about him having caffeine, but she wasn’t here.

He nursed the coffee for a while, half listening to the presentations occurring on stage and half trying to come up with a way of starting a conversation with McKay that didn't make him look like a lunatic still desperately trying to find a real world connection to his delusions.

The half that was paying attention to the presenters noticed a few things. First, the projects associated with the SGC were totally obvious. Not just because the speakers thanked the Air Force. The second thing was that the projects kind of sucked. Sheppard didn't know if that was because the scientists came to these things to present a half-baked version of whatever alien tech they'd just co-opted, so it looked like there was a process and the ability to build galactic spaceships hadn't just been dropped into their laps by little gray men. He hoped that was why the tech on stage wasn't that impressive.

But it occurred to him that without the Atlantis mission - without a successful Atlantis mission - the SGC was probably missing out on a lot. Sheppard didn't know how much. It wasn't - hadn't been - his job to pay much attention to the scientific advancements. But it seemed to him there should be a lot. How many ZPM's had they gotten from Pegasus, anyway?

This was kind of depressing, even if it wasn't all that tangible. It brought him back to questioning Heightmeyer's stupid diagnosis. Sheppard didn't see how he could have invented so much complex, detailed Ancient technology. Shit, if he’d made it all up there sure as hell would have been a lot more awesome flying machines involved.

Sheppard was thinking this over, sort of engrossed in his own head, when he heard a familiar voice.

It was Carter. She and Dr. Lee were on stage now, giving a presentation on a shiny metal box that looked to Sheppard to be of Goa'uld origin. The snakes sure liked gold.

He didn't pay much attention to Carter's speech or Lee's demonstration. Sheppard remembered Teyla's mission, then. Recovery of a Goa'uld cache. They were much more focused on Goa'uld tech, here. Well duh, he told himself. That was really all they had here. No Atlantis. The only Ancient stuff they'd come across would have been whatever they stumbled over in the Milky Way.

Huh.

Suddenly, Sheppard heard another, more familiar voice.

Rodney McKay.

His voice was coming from somewhere in the front of the auditorium, but Sheppard couldn't see him. On stage, Carter looked supremely irritated, arms crossed under her bust. Lee seemed relieved to not be in front of the microphone.

McKay was picking apart the entire demonstration, of course. He was also loudly and pointedly asking questions about the research process that Sheppard guessed Carter and Lee couldn't answer without mentioning stuff like "other planets" and "snakes that like to live inside people's skull."

Carter pretty much had to answer every question with, "As I said before, due to the military setting of our research, I'm not allowed to be more specific than I already was, Dr. McKay. You know that."

That didn't actually shut him up and Carter looked like she wanted to throw something at him. Sheppard peered around, but he couldn't see McKay.

Finally, Carter's allotted presentation time was up and she and Dr. Lee left the stage. As the next presenter came out, Sheppard climbed out of his seat and crept down the aisle. He looked, but he still didn't see McKay. He must have left the room after Carter departed.

Disappointed, even though he still hadn't come up with anything to say to the man, Sheppard went and found Carter back at her poster station.

Carter was still annoyed. She was muttering accusingly at Lee when Sheppard got there.

"I know," Lee was retorting. "I didn't ask the questions, remember?"

"Hey," Sheppard said.

Carter looked up. "Hey," she said. "Where have you been?" She might have been remembering she was supposed to be keeping him close.

"I just took a walk," Sheppard lied. He waved the empty cup. "Got some coffee. I saw your presentation, though."

Carter scowled. "Did you hear Rodney McKay?"

Sheppard nodded. "Yep."

"The only reason he comes to these things is to try and destroy other scientists," Carter muttered.

"That's why a lot of people come here," Dr. Lee pointed out.

"He doesn't even present," Carter ranted. "I can't give him a taste of his own medicine!"

"Hmm," Sheppard said.

"And he knows what comes out of the SGC," Carter continued, "and how much I'm not allowed to say!"

"Yeah," Sheppard said, "I saw that."

In response, Carter huffed. She took a deep breath.

"Where'd he go?" Sheppard asked, going for casual. "Do you know?"

Carter shrugged. "Probably off with his wife." She gave a self-satisfied grin. "I don't think she likes him hanging around me. Even if it's just so he can lavish abuse."

"Wife?" Sheppard echoed.

"Yeah," Carter said. "What's-her-name?"

"Veronika," Dr. Lee volunteered. "She's quite attractive."

Carter glanced at him in an annoyance. "Dr. Veronika something," she said. "She's Russian."

"Oh."

"It’s a long Russian surname," Carter continued. "I think most people call her Dr. Veronika."

"Most people call her something else," Lee said. Sheppard glanced at him. "It's not really appropriate or professional, though."

"Most physicists are thirteen year old boys at heart," Carter said, derisively. "She's nice-looking. She's also brilliant, which is a little more important."

“She’s _Russian_ ,” Lee said. “That’s the most important.”

Sheppard was confused. “Why?”

“Remember when I said there was come controversy about McKay going abroad?” Carter asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I meant her.”

Lee snickered and Carter rolled her eyes again. “I didn’t mean it as a pun,” she muttered.

“The SGC wasn’t comfortable with him having a working relationship with the Russians,” Lee said. “And then he married her.”

“We’re friends now,” Sheppard said, even though he knew exactly the kind of Cold War permafrost she was talking about. “And he’s Canadian.”

“Yeah.” Carter shrugged. “The SGC can’t do anything about it. It just makes them mad.”

“He works for the Russians?” Sheppard asked.

Carter pursed her lips, nodded. “Getting his citizenship and everything.” She shrugged, made a dismissive face. When Sheppard didn't say anything, Carter went on. "End of today's sessions. We should pack up our display."

"Coming back tomorrow?" Sheppard asked, since he still hadn't seen McKay.

"No," Carter said. "We're done."

"Okay," Sheppard said. "I'll meet you in the car." And then he took off before she had a chance to ask where he was going or try to stop him.

Sheppard didn't have a plan. He didn't know where McKay was, just that he'd been in the auditorium with a few hundred others just a couple minutes ago. He had no idea where to find the man and he still hadn't come up with anything to say.

Sheppard looked for him anyway. Carter was right about it being the end of the day. The other posters and stations were being packed up and the conference attendees were heading slowly towards the exits. It made for a mass of people and Sheppard had some trouble getting through. And he didn't even know if he was going the right way.

Five minutes later, as he was picking his way through the crowd, Sheppard pretty much literally smacked in Radek Zelenka.

Zelenka looked up, rubbing his head where it'd collided with Sheppard's shoulder. "Ow," he said. Then he realized who'd he banged into. "Oh, hello again," he said awkwardly.

Sheppard took a shot in the dark. "Where's Dr. Veronika?" he asked.

Zelenka blinked at him.

"Dr. Veronika," Sheppard repeated, hopefully. "Or Rod-"

"She's outside Conference Room B," Zelenka said, almost automatically. He looked a bit confused. "I saw her there. How do you -"

"Thanks, Radek." Sheppard took off before the man could even finish.

Conference Room B was back the other way and Sheppard moved as fast as he could. He still wasn't in fabulous shape and running like that winded him. He sagged against the wall when he finally saw the room designation printed on a sign.

The room was emptying out, too, whatever meeting that had occurred ending with the close of the conference. Sheppard peered around. He didn't see Rodney. There was a woman sitting on a bench outside the door, head down and hands occupied with some portable electronic device.

Sheppard walked towards her. "Excuse me," he said.

The woman raised her head. She wasn't quite what Sheppard imagined someone called 'Dr. Veronika' would look like. 

She had dyed red hair and it was hard to see the rest of her beneath a long overcoat. Dr. Veronika was pretty, he guessed, although she looked a little tired and bored at the moment. She was close to McKay’s age, which was kind of a surprise.

"Are you Dr.Veronika?" he asked. After he said it, he realized that it sounded kind of insulting.

Immediately, her face tightened with something close to annoyance.

"I am Dr. Veronika Burtseyeva," she corrected. "And you are?" She had quite the accent. Sheppard had never known McKay to go for accents.

"My name is Colonel John Sheppard," he said. She blinked a little at the title. Sheppard wasn't in uniform. Carter had worn hers but it hadn't occurred to him. Carter had assured him it was okay, and then he figured the Air Force didn't want the brain-damaged amnesiac representing them, anyway. "I'm-"

"You are man with delusions about my husband," Veronika interrupted. Her face had sharpened more. Sheppard saw the hard intelligence in her eyes and could suddenly see something that would have attracted McKay. This woman was just as blunt as he was.

Sheppard paused. It wasn't really worth arguing. "How'd you-"

"Moscow has listening apparatus implanted in Cheyenne offices," Veronika stated, flatly. "We hear everything."

He stared at her long enough that she cracked up. She had a big smile and a surprisingly deep laugh.

"My husband told me," she said. "But you believed that for a second." She laughed. "Is funny."

"Yeah," Sheppard said. Not so much.

Veronika's smile had dipped a little, as if amused as she was, she still read the insinuation that everyone thought she considered McKay a mark.

"May I help you?" she asked, settling back against the bench and slipping the phone or whatever she'd been playing with into the purse in her lap.

"Where's McKay?" Sheppard asked.

Veronika tossed her head towards the conference room door. "Is inside. I want to go back to hotel, but he had one last person to demolish."

Sheppard stared at her.

"The research premise is flawed," she said, dismissively. "Like a four-year-old wrote it. He deserves to be told he is an idiot."

"Oh," Sheppard said. McKay sounded...the same. A lot the same. It felt kind of good to know that. And he could see why he got along with Veronika.

"Why do you want to see him?" Veronika asked. She sounded curious, but not suspicious.

Sheppard glanced down the increasingly empty corridor. Then, he sat on the bench next to McKay's wife. He decided not to dwell on how weird it was it to think of this woman like that

He reached up and took of the skull cap. It had the usual effect. Veronika recoiled and made a face.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Hit my head,” he said.

“I can see that," she replied.

"I don't remember the past five years," Sheppard said. "None of it."

Veronika blinked. "Okay." Now, she looked confused.

"I don't remember being an asshole to McKay." He wasn't sure how much she knew about Atlantis. The Russians had known about the mission, maybe sent a nurse or something through the IOA. He didn't know if they'd been deliberately or voluntarily excluded. And probably McKay, given his general inability to keep his mouth shut, had told this woman everything about the Atlantis mission, anyway. It didn't matter here. It hadn't happened here. "I'm sure I was," Sheppard continued, "but I don't remember."

Veronika looked pensive. "Hmm," she said.

"What I do remember maybe didn't happen," Sheppard said. "Maybe I am the man with delusions about your husband."

That made Veronika stay silent. She waited as if not fully understanding where Sheppard was going with this. Of course, she probably truly didn't.

"I remember stuff that never happened," Sheppard continued. He had no idea why he was saying this. Confessing to a woman the SGC thought was basically a Russian spy poaching their staff was an utterly insane thing to do. "But I remember McKay," he said. "And I want to make sure he's okay."

She blinked. "He is fine," she said, after a moment.

"And you're real?" Sheppard said, bluntly. It made the woman's dark eyebrows - a considerable different color than her red hair - jump. "You're not an elaborate plan to trick the SGC's greatest brain into working for your side?"

"We're on the same side," Veronika retorted, a response that seemed built-in more than an actual reply to his accusation.

Sheppard waited.

"I have never had anyone say it to my face before," she mused. Sheppard was surprised she wasn't upset, pleasantly surprised he wasn't getting slapped. Maybe after seeing the evidence of his head injury she didn't want to hit him.  Veronika paused. "Why would I tell you," she asked, "if that was the case?"

Sheppard shrugged. "You shouldn't," he agreed. Feeling a little stupid now, he shoved the hat back on his head and pulled it down. "But, I'm the person you could tell. Everyone on my side thinks I'm totally insane."

"Are you?" Veronika asked.

He shrugged again. "Maybe."

"The Colonel Sheppard that my Rodney has told me about would not care," she observed. "Outside of a constant general xenophobic paranoia all American military have."

Sheppard didn't know if those were her words or Rodney's. They didn't sound like Rodney's. It made him kind of mad, but he chose to ignore it.

"Yeah," he said, "well, I care. Not about that. If you really wanted to, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to capture him and take him to a gulag."

"But then he would not cooperate," Veronika said, so easily it made Sheppard snap straight up. 

“Joke,” she said, lightly, and laughed again. “He was right about something, you have no sense of humor.”

Sheppard frowned. He didn’t know what to say. Not that he should have expected this conversation to go any better.

Suddenly, Veronika put her hand lightly on his knee. “I am real,” she said, “as you say.”

Sheppard met her eyes. “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

She shrugged. “No,” she said. “If even I was evil, I don’t think I’d be stupid.”

Involuntarily, Sheppard actually chuckled. He put his hands on his thighs and stood up, letting her hand fall from his leg. “Thanks,” he said. And he meant it. He was sincerely reassured that this woman – McKay’s wife – wasn’t a villain. He didn’t want to think about it more extensively than that, but it made him feel better. It was good to know.

“Rodney will be out in a second,” Veronika offered. “If you want to see him.”

Sheppard paused. Suddenly, he didn’t want to. It would just be hard. Hard in the same way that being around Teyla could be. And Rodney wouldn’t make it easier the way she did.

“No,” he said. “That’s okay. It’s good this way. I should go. Tell him -”

“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Rodney.

It was too late. Rodney had come out of the conference room, done with whoever he was harassing. He’d recognized Sheppard instantly.

Sheppard glanced over at him. Rodney looked the same. Maybe a little softer, back to the physique of a scientist who didn’t go on regular off-world missions requiring the ability to suddenly run away. He was wearing a suit, which was little visually dissonant.

“Hey, Rodney,” Sheppard said.

“I said what the hell are you doing here?” Rodney repeated. “Hadn’t threatened to shoot me recently enough?”

Sheppard opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Rodney was already red-faced, body rigid with anger. It’d been a long time since Sheppard had seen that directed at him with such sincerity.

Abruptly, Veronika rose and placed a restraining hand on Rodney’s arm. “Rodney,” she said. “He is ill.”

“I know,” Rodney retorted. “So?”

Sheppard took a step back. “I just came to say hi to your wife, McKay,” he came up with. There wasn’t anything he could do here.

“ _What?_ ”

“Congratulations,” Sheppard said, to both of them. He kind of meant it.

With that, he turned around and walked quickly away from the couple. Carter and Dr. Lee were waiting for him at the car, already packed up.

“Where were you?” Carter asked, looking concerned. “I was about to have you paged.”

“I didn’t remember where we parked,” Sheppard lied.

But she believed him, since she thought he didn’t remember much of anything.

~

That night, in his undecorated quarters in Cheyenne, Sheppard came up with a plan. It was half-assed and probably stupid and futile, but he was still going to do it. He had to go through with it while Teyla was away.

His confinement to the SGC was convenient now. It was also convenient that Teyla’s mission was stretching on and on. Sheppard talked to her once a week or so via the MALP left near the Stargate on the planet. Every time she promised to be home soon and every time she mentioned how much more work had to be done there, meaning the end wasn’t even in sight.

Heightmeyer was on maternity leave, now. She’d given birth to a baby daughter. A little earlier than expected. The baby was fine, but Heightmeyer had neglected to assign Sheppard’s counseling to someone else and Sheppard didn’t feel the need to mention it to anyone who might rectify that.

So, he had a lot of free time on his hands now. He tried to be inconspicuous about that. It seemed to be working. 

Sheppard hung out a lot near the Gateroom, insinuating himself with the ‘Gate techs who worked the dialing computers. He really wasn’t supposed to be there, but once he started bringing coffee and donuts with him from the cafeteria, no one minded.

Watching reconnaissance teams come and go was kind of tough. Even though the uniforms were different, as were most of the people, it was familiar enough to make the twinge he’d been studiously ignoring start up again. It made him jealous, especially since Landry eventually realized he was there and gave him a friendly but firm lecture about how a certain brain-damaged amnesiac was never, ever going through the ‘Gate again. Sheppard gave him a dumbass grin and pretended like he had no intention of doing that.

It was odd being on the end that watched SG teams leave and return. The departures were less interesting. The arrivals could be a lot more exciting, with arrows and projectiles flying in after the people. It made Sheppard reminiscent, as did the teams coming back coated in various kinds of muck and loudly blaming each other for whatever had gone wrong. It was amusing, even if it made Sheppard feel unexpectedly bitter.

Maybe he wasn’t being as inconspicuous as he thought he was.

He was taking a lunch break – well, in as much as one could take a break from standing around doing nothing – in the cafeteria when someone confronted him.

Vala Mal Doran slid in to the seat next to him, and promptly reached over and swiped the bowl of blue Jell-O off of his tray.

“Hey!” he objected.

Vala stuck the spoon in her mouth and grinned around it. She slurped the Jell-O off, then took the spoon and tapped it against her chin.

“Why are you scoping out the Gateroom?” she asked, whispering. She was squinting at him.

Sheppard pretended he had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m eating lunch,” he pointed out, quietly.

“Uh-huh,” Vala said. “I know what it looks like. I’ve _done_ it.”

“You’re a crazy person.” Sheppard took a bite of his sandwich. “I’m bored,” he told her, which wasn’t untrue. “That’s all. I can’t leave the base, remember?”

“Neither can I,” replied Vala. “When I’m bored, I tend to cause security alerts.” She grinned, tilted her head at him. “What are you planning?”

“To take my Jell-O back and leave,” Sheppard said, causing her to jerk the bowl against her torso, where he couldn’t get it without looking like he was trying to cop a feel.

“I’m bored as well,” Vala said. “Daniel is playing with those useless Goa’uld toys and he won’t let me touch them.”

“Go cause a security alert,” Sheppard suggested, shoving his tray back as if to leave.

“If you don’t tell me,” Vala sing-songed. “I’ll tell Mitchell.”

Sheppard had begun to rise. Now he halted and lowered himself back down. “Tell Mitchell what?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

Vala shrugged. She tinked the spoon against the side of his bowl. “I don’t know. That you’re planning on escaping through the ‘Gate to go somewhere and do something that has meaning according to the delusions your messed up brain has invented?”

Sheppard said nothing. He held very still. Vala grinned wider, unfortunately taking his total lack of reaction as confirmation. “I knew it,” she said, gleefully. “Where are you going? Why? Can I come?”

“Shhh!”

Her voice had risen dangerously high. Sheppard glared at her.

And then he told her the truth, because even though she was a lunatic, Sheppard was sure she was also vindictive enough to do exactly what she’d threatened. And Mitchell could read him well enough to decide it was true, and then he might actually get put in the brig.

“I just want to check it out,” he said, speaking so low she had to lean into hear him. “I just want to see what’s there.”

Vala pulled back. “In Pegasus?” She looked disappointed. “How do you propose to get there?”

Sheppard paused. He could let her think that he was crazy enough to be plotting a ridiculous escape to another galaxy. Except she would still probably tell Mitchell. And that would be even worse.

“No,” he snapped. “P3X-463.”

Vala blinked at him.

“The planet where I was injured,” Sheppard said. “Here.”

“Oh.” She still looked disappointed. “Why?”

Sheppard shrugged, shook his head. “I just want to see what’s there,” he repeated. He had no idea what he wanted to find. An Ascended being to finally take credit for this whole mess. A wormhole to Pegasus. Anything.

Vala tilted her head to the other side. “Like…treasure?” she suggested. He could see in her face that she didn’t actually believe that. She just meant she was going to come with him.

“No,” he said, fiercely.

But Vala was grinning at him, blackmailing him without saying a word. Angrily, Sheppard reached out and snatched his Jell-O back.

~

Vala turned out to be a decent partner in crime. Sheppard wasn’t entirely sure he could have pulled it off without her help. He’d thought he was going to have knock out the ‘Gate computer technicians, which didn’t thrill him. But Vala provided an excellent distraction that got them to evacuate and then Sheppard locked the doors. He wondered if she came up with that plan so he wouldn’t have access to a zat gun, since he was pissed off enough to shoot her in the embarkation room and leave without her.

Sheppard considered trying to knock her out, but he couldn’t think of a way that didn’t involve starting a fist fight he might not win on the ‘Gate ramp.

In the end, they went through the ‘Gate together. They came out on an empty planet with a rocky surface. Sheppard had never seen this place before.

Vala had stolen Sheppard boots from some supply closet so he could manage the terrain. He laced them up quickly, then stood.

“Let’s go,” he said. The dialing system at the SGC should stay down long enough for them to get a head start, but he knew he wasn’t smarter than Carter at that sort of thing.

The journey to the spot the mission reports recorded as where Sheppard had tripped and fallen took about an hour. Even with the boots, it was tough. Vala asked him several times if he wanted to rest, which meant he must have looked like shit. It was hard to keep the pace up and Sheppard kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to see a pissed off SG team on their heels.

Finally, they reached it.

The only reason Sheppard knew it was the right place was the photos and maps in Lorne's mission report. He had no memory of being here. He’d admit that it sure looked like a great spot to trip, fall, and smash his head open. The whole distance they'd walked from the 'Gate had been rocky and uneven, but here the ground stretched out into smoother, sediment covered rock. Sheppard almost walked over an edge without seeing it and Vala grabbed him and pulled him back.

"Watch it!" she said, sharply. "If you get killed, I will be in so much trouble."

It was then that Sheppard realized they weren't standing on the surface of the planet, but on some kind of mountain. Except it wasn't exactly intact and the loose sediment covered enormous, cavernous holes in the rock.

"So," said Vala, cheerily. "We're here."

Sheppard said nothing. He stepped back from the edge he'd nearly stepped off, found a roundish rock butting out from the ground to sit on.

Vala stuck close to him. Maybe she thought he’d been deliberately trying to jump off of the cliff.

"Where did you fall?" Vala asked, because he wasn't moving or speaking.

Sheppard glared at her. "I have no idea."

Vala regarded him. "Do you want to look around," she asked, "or sit there until an SG team shows up?"

Sheppard again wished he was alone. He had no idea what to do. It wasn't that he'd expected to find an answer, find a big shining beacon marking the spot, but he’d wanted more than a big stupid mountain full of holes.

"Fine." Vala took a step back. " _I'm_ going to look around. This looks like a great place to hide things of value. You stay right there and don’t get injured again. And when the SG team finds you, make sure you tell them how you took me hostage and forced me to come."

She took another small step away from him. "I'm serious," she warned.

Sheppard waited until Vala had walked just out of view. She was moving very, very slowly, like she really didn't want to leave him alone.

As soon as he couldn't see her, Sheppard rose off of his rock and peered down the nearest cavern. It was dim and he couldn't see a safe foothold. Getting inside the cave system wasn't going to be easy.

He walked around a little, looking for a better access point.

Almost immediately, he came across Vala. She hadn’t gone far at all, crouching behind another large rock.

“Ahem,” she said when she saw him. “I think I found it.”

“What?”

Vala pointed to an area just behind her boulder: a pile of fragmented rock sitting between a small crevice and a larger hole that look recently and violently created.

“I think,” she said, “You fell in the little one and they got you out through the big one.”

Sheppard followed her finger with his gaze. Again, he recognized nothing. And he didn’t see anything worth noting, at least not on the surface.

“I’m gonna go down there,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure how.

Vala squinted at him, got to her feet. She walked closer to the holes in the rock and peered down and raised her eyebrows at the distance.

“I think that’s what got you into this mess in the first place,” she pointed out.

“Maybe it’ll get me out,” he retorted.

He walked towards her, peering down as well. It really was a drop into darkness.

Sheppard sat down, dropping his legs through the larger hole. He couldn’t see the bottom all that well, but he figured if he’d been rescued through this one, the team would have cleared it of debris.

“Wait,” Vala said, sharply. She dropped to her knees next to him, producing a flashlight from somewhere in her clothes. “I’ll go first.”

“Why?” Sheppard asked.

“Watch me,” Vala said. “I’ll show you how to not land on your head. Move!”

He pulled his legs out of her way. Vala shone the flashlight down into the darkness, made an unhappy face. “Oh, well,” she said. Vala shoved her legs down, balanced on the rim with her hands for a second, then dropped.

Sheppard heard her feet hit the bottom with a thud. It didn’t sound too far away.

“Out of the way,” he said. “I’m coming down.”

“Remember,” Vala called up. “Feet first!”

Sheppard was putting his feet back down the side when he heard footsteps scuffing nearby.

“Sheppard!” Yelled Cameron Mitchell’s voice. “Vala!”

In the next second, Mitchell, Teal’c, Carter, and Jackson came into Sheppard’s view. He almost could have slid forward and dropped through the hole, but it was too late. Mitchell and Carter both had zat guns in hand and they were instantly leveled at him.

Slowly, Sheppard raised his hands in surrender.

“Shoot him,” he heard Jackson mutter. “He’s already on the ground, he can’t hit his head too hard from there.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Mitchell replied, loud enough for Sheppard to hear. “I don’t want to do it when you’re standing.” It was sort of joking, but he was looking at Sheppard with warning in his eyes and he hadn’t lowered the zat.

Sheppard shook his head. “You don’t have to,” he said, since he wasn’t going to do anything. He was totally outnumbered and unarmed, and he didn’t want to fight SG-1 anyway.

“Okay,” Mitchell said, even though the zat stayed up. “Move away from the bunny hole, please.”

Obediently, Sheppard put his hands flat on the ground and scooted backwards ‘til his legs were back on the surface and his back hit another standing rock. 

Carter, at least, had put her zat away. She looked relieved to have found him. “You scared the hell out of us, John,” she said, approaching. “Teyla’s on her way back.”

Sheppard winced. He’d deliberately done this when Teyla wasn’t around for a reason. The rest of SG-1 crowded around Sheppard. He stayed on the ground and didn’t try to stand, even though he didn’t like the power differential with the four of them looming above him like that. At least Mitchell had holstered the zat.

“What were you looking for?” Jackson asked, peering down at him.

Sheppard shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “Something.”

“You could have just asked,” Mitchell chided him. “You didn’t have to set a fire and hijack the ‘Gate.”

Sheppard blinked up at him. “A fire?” he echoed. Then, he remembered Vala’s distraction to evacuate the Gateroom. “That was Vala.”

“Where is Vala Mal Doran?” Inquired Teal’c, looking around.

“Down there,” Sheppard said, gesturing with both thumbs.

Teal’c moved away from him and peered down into the darkness.

“Landry would never have let me go,” Sheppard said to Mitchell. “You know that.”

“That doesn’t make this an acceptable alternative,” Carter snapped.

Sheppard shrugged again. “Sorry,” he said, aware it didn’t sound remotely sincere. “And, um, I took Vala hostage.” That probably didn’t sound sincere, either.

Jackson snorted. “Uh-huh.”

Mitchell knelt down next to Sheppard. “Do you know how insane it is when the crazy one is chaperoning _anyone_?”

“Chaperoning?”

“We figured you’d do something stupid eventually,” Carter volunteered. “And that you’d tell one of us.”

“Didn’t expect it to be Vala.” Mitchell sounded kind of betrayed.

“I didn’t _tell_ ,” Sheppard began.

“Also figured that one of us would stop you,” Jackson mused, “not _help_.”

“Didn’t expect it to be Vala,” Mitchell repeated.

Sheppard looked at the ground. He could hear Teal’c calling Vala’s name into the caverns below. As Sheppard was raising his eyes, he caught Mitchell fidgeting with a pair of plastic field restraints attached to his belt. Sheppard tensed.

“You don’t need the cuffs,” he promised, meeting Mitchell’s eyes. “There’s nothing here. Nowhere else to go.”

Carter put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take you home.”

Mitchell dropped his hand from the restraints without comment.

“Yo,” he yelled towards Teal’c. “Pull the princess up and let’s get out of here.”

“She says she is coming,” replied Teal’c, turning his head towards them.

“How come my team didn’t come?” Sheppard asked. He’d kind of expected Ford and Lorne to be sent after him.

“Landry thought you might be able to talk them into helping you,” Jackson said.

Sheppard shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He was pretty sure both of them would have shot him before even giving him the chance to persuade them to disobey orders.

SG-1 didn’t question that assessment. Jackson turned towards Teal’c.

“What’s taking so long?” he asked.

“I do not know,” Teal’c said. “I cannot see Vala Mal Doran.”

“Oh, crap,” Mitchell said. He was beginning to look worried. He glanced down at Sheppard. “She didn’t land on her head, did she?”

Sheppard shook his head.

“She’s probably looking for treasure,” muttered Jackson. He walked over next to Teal’c and leaned down. “Vala, get your ass up here!”

A few seconds later, Sheppard saw Teal’c and Jackson reaching down into the hole. Vala popped up between them, clinging shakily to their hands until her feet were finally settled on the surface.

“You look like a hamster,” Mitchell yelled at her, still standing over Sheppard.

Vala was filthy. Grime covered her face and it looked like she’d been digging up to her elbows in mud. She was also grinning madly, teeth bright white against her dirt smeared face.

“Hey,” she said, excitedly. “I thought this was a pointless exercise to resolve Sheppard’s  obvious mental problems, but there’s actually something down here!”

“What?” Mitchell asked.

“What is it?” demanded Sheppard. He tried to scramble up, but Mitchell immediately shoved him back down to the ground.

“Uh-uh,” Mitchell said to him.

“What is it?” repeated Carter.

“I don’t know,” Vala said. “But it’s shiny!”

~

SG-1 forced Sheppard to go back to the SGC.

"No," Sheppard tried to argue. "I was right! There's something down there!"

"Do the words 'unauthorized 'gate use' mean anything to you?" Mitchell asked. "Landry's already mad. You're going back."

"Vala's not exactly an expert," Carter said, more gently. "Look, we'll check it out. If it's anything..." She paused, uncertain how to express how unlikely she thought that was. "It probably isn't."

"Accompany me, Colonel Sheppard," Teal'c said, politely but firmly enough to mean it wasn't a request. Sheppard glared at him, anyway, and then he glared at Mitchell. Mitchell totally ignored him.

Sheppard could only watch as Vala vanished back into the cavern from which she'd emerged. Jackson, having the nerve to look excited, jumped down after her. Sandwiched between Mitchell and Teal'c, Sheppard might as well have been tied up. He looked over his shoulder for as long as he could, until Carter too crouched down and slipped into the hole.

"It's probably nothing," Mitchell said, as they hiked back to the 'Gate.

Sheppard didn't answer. He had no reason to move fast, now, and was using his genuine exhaustion to keep their pace slow.

"What did you expect to find?" Mitchell asked again, a few minutes later.

"I don't know," Sheppard. "Something's there."

"Probably nothing," Mitchell repeated. "Vala could have found a really shiny rock for all you know."

"Vala Mal Doran is fairly astute at judging things of value," Teal'c pointed out.

Across Sheppard, Mitchell glared at Teal'c.  "Not helping, T," he muttered.

They reached the 'Gate and Teal'c dialed the SGC.

"How much trouble do you think I'm in?" Sheppard asked Mitchell quietly as they walked towards the horizon.

"Oh, a lot," was Mitchell's immediate, annoyed replied. Then, he paused. "But you can blame most of it on your head injury. Would you mind taking credit for the fire thing? Because Vala can get away with a lot, but probably not arson."

~

There wasn't a lot of yelling when Sheppard, Mitchell, and Teal'c got back to the SGC. Sheppard didn't get thrown in the brig, which was nice. But the way Landry looked at him, like he thought Sheppard was mentally ill and thus not really responsible for his actions wasn't much better.

"Thank you for bringing him home," Landry directed at Mitchell and Teal'c while Sheppard stood between them and wondered if the Airmen were going handcuff him or something. "But where's the rest of SG-1? Don't tell me they ran off, too?”

“They found something,” Sheppard asserted, loudly.

Landry blinked at him. “What?”

“We don’t know,” Mitchell replied. He looked a little uncomfortable.

Landry was still looking at Sheppard. “What were you looking for, son?”

And Sheppard still couldn’t answer that question, so he just met Landry’s eyes and shrugged.

Instead of the brig, Landry had Sheppard confined to his quarters. It wasn’t all that different than the past few months, except now there were Airmen standing outside the door.

No one told Sheppard what was happening back on P3X-463. Not that they would necessarily even recognize whatever was there. These people had only ever seen random pieces of Ancient technology, they didn’t have the Atlantis database at their disposal.

Sheppard paced the lengths of his quarters, worrying that they had no idea what they were dealing with.

He was so focused on that, so intent on imagining what could possibly have been buried under all that rock and dirt, that he almost forgot that he was in trouble for running off in the first place. He also forgot that they had called Teyla back.

Teyla showed about three hours later.

The door opened and she rushed inside, looking around for Sheppard. He was standing right near the entrance, so she took three steps and grabbed hold of him. She'd forgotten he didn't like to be hugged or maybe she didn't care, because that's what she did. When she let go of him, Sheppard could see the worry on her face. It was beginning to transition into anger.

"You frightened me," Teyla said, not loudly but speaking hotly. "I was afraid..." she trailed off, unsure.

"I'm sorry, Teyla," Sheppard said, because he genuinely was. She was never supposed to find out about this.

Teyla released him completely and took a small step back, the anger fading from her face. It was replaced by what looked a lot like disappointment.

"What were you looking for?" Teyla asked.

Helpless, Sheppard could only shrug.

"I don't know," he said, even though he knew it would hurt her. "Look, Teyla, you know something's wrong. I didn't just hit my head."

Teyla crossed her arms. "I do not know that," she said, flatly.

"You never told me about Runners, Teyla," he said. "But I know about them. I could tell you a hell of a lot more about Pegasus than I should be able to."

"We speak of it often," Teyla said, stubbornly.

"It's not about you," Sheppard tried to reassure her. "I think this place is...I think a lot of people here are happier and healthier and better off here than where I've been."

"You have been here," Teyla insisted. "You have been nowhere else."

"I was looking for a way back," Sheppard said, the answer coming to him. "I belong there."

Teyla looked like she was going to cry.

"You belong with me," she said.

"Your husband belongs with you. If I'm right," Sheppard continued, "there's another version of me that is just beating the crap out of an innocent guy named Kanaan right about now."

"Kanaan?" Teyla said, blinking at him. "How do you-" And then she froze and closed her mouth.

"He's the father of your son," Sheppard said. "You never told me about him, did you?"

Teyla raised one hand to her face, folded it over her lips.

"They found something," Sheppard told her. "In the hole where I fell."

For a second, Teyla just stared at him. Her eyes were still wet. Slowly, she dropped her hand from her face.

“A way back?” she asked, hesitantly.

Sheppard had gotten ahead of himself. He didn’t know that, yet. He didn’t know anything, yet.

~

It was something.

It was Ancient in origin.

It was big.

That was all Sheppard knew. Vala came and told him that evening. A couple more SG teams and archaeologists had been sent out to help excavate it.

"What is it?" he asked.

Vala tilted her head. "We have no idea," she said sincerely. "Sam and Daniel are looking at it. They said I was unhelpful and kicked me out. Ungrateful wretches."

"Okay," Sheppard said. He found himself feeling disappointed, expecting something more solid now.

Vala nodded and pursed her lips. "Yep."

There was awkward silence for a few seconds. Teyla, sitting on the couch, sighed heavily.

"Thank you for accompanying John," she said, after a moment. "I am glad that you were watching him."

Sheppard took that in. He’d thought Vala had been operating on her own interests. It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d been acting on behalf of Teyla. She really had been his goddamn chaperone.

"Not a problem," Vala said, cheerily. "I didn't actually expect him to lead me to treasure."

~


	6. The Undone Years  6/7

The discovery changed some things. Some people stopped acting like Sheppard was just crazy. Started acting like maybe he just wasn't the Sheppard they knew. Which actually meant Ford and Lorne now had no idea how to they were supposed to behave with him. It was almost like they thought they didn’t know him at all. Their team - minus Sheppard - headed off to the planet to help dig the thing out.

It took about a week. In the meantime, Sheppard was still confined to quarters on base. Maybe more punishment than making sure he stayed put. He had no place else to go, now, and no reason to leave. He wanted to be with the teams pulling the thing out of the ground, but that was out of the question. Maybe they thought he’d try to stick his head in it again.

Teyla stayed with him. Landry took off the Airmen guarding the door at her request and allowed Sheppard to move around freely if Teyla was with him. It was better than being followed around like an inmate, but Sheppard didn’t like the acknowledgment that everyone thought Teyla could kick his ass. Even though she totally could and he knew it.

Having Teyla back was good and bad. Sheppard had missed her, maybe more than he’d admitted, while she’d been away.

But her absence had interrupted whatever weird normalcy they’d been establishing in their mundane suburban home. Even after she’d been called back to duty, their weekly MALP conversations had maintained what probably passed for intimate domesticity for them.

Now he was focused again on the Stargate, on Pegasus, on getting back to Atlantis any way he could. Teyla wasn’t an idiot. She could tell where his mind was at. He knew it had to hurt, even if she said nothing.

The bed in the quarters they shared was a lot smaller than the one in their house. Teyla hadn’t reached out to Sheppard romantically – _sexually_ – since he’d woken up here. Even though they’d been sleeping in the same bed for months now. He deliberately hadn’t thought much about what that was like for her.

But the smaller bed was closing the distance between them, in a very literal way.

More often than not, Sheppard woke up with his arms around Teyla, their bodies increasingly intertwined in the smaller space.

He didn’t freak out about it. He didn’t need to.

Sheppard had decided that it wasn’t wrong, even if it was weird. This wasn’t his body and this wasn’t his Teyla, but the person who owned this body belonged with this Teyla. He wasn’t betraying anyone or anything. Teyla was so happy that he didn’t instantly pull away from her. It was good to see her smile, and curling against her soft, warm body wasn’t too bad, either.

He woke one morning, feeling one of Teyla’s smooth legs lying up against, almost between his calves. Without opening his eyes, he could tell she was snuggled near him, the warmth of her breath against his ear.  

When Sheppard gradually opened his eyes and lolled his head towards her, he found Teyla already awake. She must have been watching him sleep, which would have creeped him out in the beginning.

“Hey,” he said, voice coated in sleep.

Teyla smiled at him. “Good morning,” she said, and continued to stare at him.

“Hrm,” Sheppard answered, a little bewildered by her intense gaze.

After a second, Teyla spoke. “You are very much the same,” she said. “But different, too.”

Sheppard met her eyes, unsure what to say. With the arm she wasn’t using to prop her head up, Teyla reached out her hand a touched the side of Sheppard’s head, where he didn’t have any stitches or staples and the hair was thick and full. He let her touch, then stroke him.

“Whatever happened,” she said, still petting his hair. “It changed you,” she said. “I wish it had not.” She sounded oddly resigned, almost wistful.

“I’m sorry,” Sheppard said, softly. He didn’t know what else to say. He was sorry. Teyla didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve to have him here instead of the Sheppard she knew.

“You are needed there?” Teyla asked, but it was barely a question.

Sheppard nodded, feeling her hand moving against his skull. He was glad she understood that, or at least glad she saw reasons other than him not wanting to be _here_.

“It’s very different,” he said. “We stayed and…did a lot.” He didn’t want to go into it, didn’t know if he should or if she needed him to.

“Better?” Teyla asked.

Sheppard paused. He couldn’t say it was. Heightmeyer, Weir, Beckett, and Ford came instantly to mind. But _Atlantis_. And Ronon. And his team, his Teyla and his Rodney.  He shook his head. “Gotta finish what I started,” he said.

Teyla’s hand stilled against his hair. “Would it be so bad,” she began, “to stay here?”

“No,” Sheppard said, without pausing. “If I can’t…” he trailed off. “I’ll be here. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” Teyla repeated. In the next second, she was leaning forward. She went to kiss him, chastely, and this time Sheppard let her.

~

Landry was cautious, but he seemed to believe Sheppard now, too.

Sheppard was invited to his office. Under the circumstances, it was more of an order. Teyla accompanied him, instead of the Airmen, so he didn't get escorted through the halls of Cheyenne like a prisoner.

"It seems you may not have hit your head that hard," Landry said, after Teyla and Sheppard arrived and had taken seats. Landry's daughter, Dr. Lam, had also joined them in his office.

"Yeah," Sheppard said.

Teyla stayed silent.

"He did hit his head," Lam interjected. "Whatever he hit it on, Colonel Sheppard had a severe head injury. That happened."

"Why was the object not discovered when he was injured?" Teyla asked.

"It was covered in dirt and rocks," Landry answered. "They literally didn't see it.”

“And after Colonel Sheppard was injured, no one was really paying attention to what he'd landed on, just on getting him out of there,” Lam contributed.

“They were looking for Naquadah, anyway,” Landry said, “They didn’t expect anything else to be there.”

"What is it?" Sheppard spoke up.

"A large artifact of Ancient technology," Landry said, which wasn't very informative. "Or so Dr. Jackson tells me."

"What does it do?" Lam asked.

Landry shrugged. "Besides serve as pointy surface for Air Force Colonels to slam their skulls into, we don't know yet."

Sheppard saw Teyla frown and shift in her seat.

"Call us here to tell us that?" asked Sheppard.

“No,” Landry said. “I didn’t.”

He reached into a desk draw and produced a manila folder, tossed it onto his desktop.

"It seems you have knowledge of the Pegasus galaxy," he said. "More than from the Atlantis mission."

Sheppard didn't argue that all of his knowledge came from the Atlantis mission. "Looks like," he agreed. He saw Teyla nodding slowly.

"Then I can tell you this, now," Landry continued. "The Atlantis mission is ongoing."

Sheppard froze. "What?" He looked at Teyla. "Did you know about this?"

Teyla shook her head. "I was told it was too expensive and politically unpopular after the mission failure," she said. "You said the SGC would never go back to Pegasus." She was glaring at Landry.

"I think I said the IOA would never go back to Pegasus," Landry said, ignoring her outrage. "The difference is a fine one," he admitted. "But it's an important one. The SGC has been back in Pegasus since about two months after the Atlantis survivors were returned to the Milky Way."

"Why?" Sheppard asked.

"To find the city of the Ancients, of course," Landry said, plainly. "And all the advanced technology and weapons it contains."

"How?" Sheppard demanded. "Who's there?"

"Daedalus-class ship called the Apollo," Landry said. "Minus any international crew and all the pesky IOA involvement that comes with them."

"Why are you telling us this, now?" Teyla asked.

Landry tapped the manila folder on his desk. "Colonel Sheppard may now have valuable information that could help us find Atlantis."

"You do not know that," Teyla said, instantly. "You do not even know what the object is."

"No," Landry agreed. "But it's Ancient. That's close enough to proof for me."

Lam made a derogatory noise in her throat, but said nothing.

Sheppard spoke up. "Yeah," he said. "I think I can help." He paused. "We're going to forget about the little incident from a few days ago, right?"

General Landry gave Sheppard the manila folder contents. It was a summary of the past four and a half years of the Apollo's mission in Pegasus and their progress in locating Atlantis. He took the papers with him back to his quarters, Teyla walking tensely at his side.

"I cannot believe they kept this from us," she hissed, when they entered his quarters.

Sheppard glanced at her, having trouble gauging why she was suddenly so upset. "They said," she snapped. "That all travel to Pegasus had ceased and would never resume." She realized Sheppard wasn’t understanding her. “They said that I would never be able to go home!”

~

The Apollo had spent nearly the past four years in the Pegasus galaxy. Searching pretty much blindly for Atlantis. But otherwise under strict orders not to engage the native populace, by which Sheppard was pretty sure the Pentagon meant the Wraith. And it looked like they’d obeyed that instruction, staying cloaked constantly and completely avoiding even the hibernating hives. Sheppard was filled with relief when he read that, almost unexpectedly so.

Otherwise, the files didn’t say much. Without Atlantis as a starting point, without its extensive if ten thousand years out of date library, Pegasus was an enormous and mysterious place. They didn’t know Atlantis could be under an ocean and they really didn’t know what they were looking for.

That made Sheppard feel inexplicably smug, like he was in on a secret that no one else would ever guess. Which he was, even if he didn’t know why. Even if he still had no idea how he was getting back to it. Atlantis and everyone on it suddenly felt much, much closer. And that felt really good, the best he’d felt since he’d opened his eyes, seen Ford, and realized what’d been taken from him.

Teyla read the summary after him. Quickly, like it didn’t hold her attention. It probably didn’t. There wasn’t anything in it that would. Pegasus was her galaxy, but it was more to her than anonymous planets

“They have done nothing,” she said, almost bitterly, when she finished and dropped the manila folder on her lap.

“Looking for Atlantis,” Sheppard reminded her.

“With your people’s technology,” Teyla retorted instantly, “they could fight the Wraith.”

Sheppard froze, lips half open. He hadn’t imagined that’s what was going through her mind. “You’d think,” he said, very quietly. Teyla looked at him in confusion. “They should have told us,” Sheppard said, quickly changing the subject. “That operations in Pegasus continued. Told you.”

Sheppard wasn’t sure that they should have told _him_. He had no idea if he would have given a shit, having never seen Atlantis. It was long ago, but remembered his skepticism well. If he’d never seen Atlantis, he’d probably have been satisfied leading an SG team in the Milky Way. If he’d never seen Atlantis, that would have been exciting enough.

“No,” Teyla said. She stood up, stalked across the room and tossed the manila folder on to the foot of their bed. The pages fluttered out, fanning across the bedspread. Teyla looked at the mess and frowned. “My people are gone,” she reminded him.

Right. Sheppard wanted to tell her that they _weren’t_. That despite Michael’s best efforts, the Athosians were fine. They were happy and thriving and alive. Except, of course, Michael hadn’t happened. Not here.

“My home is here now,” Teyla said, taking a seat next to the spilled pages and half-heartedly shuffling them back into their folder. “It is,” she said, softer, deliberately not raising her eyes to look at him.

“Would you have gone?” Sheppard asked, though he already knew the answer. “Back? I mean,” he swiveled his hand over his abdomen in poor interpretation of ‘gutshot’. “After?”

Teyla shook her head. “No,” she said. “I think not.”

But she was looking at him like, yes, she would have, with him.

~

They brought it back to the SGC almost a week later. It being the large, buried Ancient device Sheppard had so cleverly found. He got to see it brought through the ‘Gate, an enormous cube-like object covered in dusty tarps and tied to what amounted to a big ass dolly as it was rolled down the ‘Gate ramp. Landry didn’t want him to go near it until, as he said, they ‘understood it better.’ Sheppard guessed everyone thought he was going to try to stick his head in it or something.

They still didn’t know what it was. He almost suspected that they _did_ and were keeping it from him for sinister reasons, until he attended one of the weekly debriefings and witnessed Carter and Jackson’s obvious and genuine frustration. Landry looked too irritated to be faking and the rest of SG-1 was too disinterested to be trying to trick him.

“Let me touch it,” Sheppard suggested, after listening to fifteen minutes of monologue about what hadn’t worked thus far.

“We had Major Lorne try to turn it on,” Carter answered, a step ahead. “It’s broken.”

“Maybe,” Jackson said. “We don’t know what it is or how it works. Possibly we aren’t using it correctly.”

“Possibly,” Carter concurred. “But, it is damaged.”

“How so?” asked Landry.

“Part of the surface,” Jackson said. “It’s cracked.”

“Did Sheppard’s head do it?” piped up Mitchell.

“Yeah,” Carter answered, trying very hard not to sound accusing, “probably.”

Vala tsk-tsked at him and shook her head. “Maybe he broke the on button,” she suggested.

Carter shrugged, helplessly. “It’s entirely possible. I haven’t even come close to figuring out its power system – assuming it has one.”

 “It is not Goa’uld in origin,” Teal’c offered, and at least he was trying to be helpful. “Nor have I ever heard of or witnessed it in their use.”

“Thanks, Teal’c,” Carter said.

“I bet I could figure it out,” said Vala, thoughtfully.

“No,” said Carter, instantly.  
  
“ _Hell_ no,” added Jackson.

“If you want to see inside it,” Vala said, ignoring their reactions. “You need something to make it go boom.”

“I’m going to veto that,” Landry said, mildly. “Anything else?”

“If you need a fresh pair of eyes,” Sheppard said, keeping his gaze fixed on the tabletop. “Dr. Rodney McKay is in town.”

Silence answered him, until Carter huffed.

“Dr. McKay no longer works for this facility,” Landry answered, not unkindly.

“But we’ve called him before,” Carter said, after a moment. “It’s not a bad idea.” Landry didn’t look pleased and Carter shrugged. “I’m the one that has to listen to him gloat,” she said. “I think Colonel Sheppard’s right – we need McKay’s help.”

It didn’t take long to get McKay to Cheyenne, once Landry grudgingly gave consent for Carter to bring him in. There was no guarantee that McKay would agree, of course, but Sheppard correctly predicted that, bottom line, McKay wouldn’t be able to resist the invitation.

Sheppard managed to be in the room when they asked him. The Ancient object wasn’t anywhere in sight of course, all McKay got was a non-disclosure form on an empty table.

“You know,” McKay was saying to Carter when Sheppard arrived and sidled up beside Mitchell, who watching from the wall next to the door. “Eventually, you’re going to have to save your _own_ asses. Veronika and I are moving to Moscow this year.”

“You already said that,” Carter said, coolly. “It has nothing to do with anything. If you don’t want to help, you should have told us so over the phone.”

McKay crossed his arms. “Help you what?”

“You know how this works,” Landry answered, interrupting Carter’s eye roll. “Sign the non-disclosure form, first.”

“Of course I know how this works,” McKay retorted. “You’ve only come crawling back for help a dozen times since I quit.”

Landry rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked pointedly at Carter. “This was your idea.”

“Just sign it,” Sheppard said, sharply. “Just sign it, McKay, you know you want to.”

McKay turned his head towards Sheppard, shock on his face. He hadn’t seen Sheppard come in. He looked at him for only a second, then turned back to Carter and Landry.

“Well, I see why I’m here. You let the _brain-damaged lunatic_ touch something, didn’t you?”

Next to Sheppard, Mitchell made an irritated noise. Like he wanted to come to Sheppard’s defense.

“The brain-damaged lunatic knows more than you do right now,” Sheppard answered. “So sign it or get out, McKay.”

McKay jerked a thumb at Sheppard, still not looking at him. “Why is he still here? Doesn’t a brain disorder make him unfit for duty?”

“No more than a personality disorder,” Carter retorted swiftly. Sheppard held back a grin. She tapped the signature line on the legal packet sitting on the table.

Looking irritated – but also curious – McKay grabbed the pen from Carter’s finger tips, bent over, and scrawled his name.

“Okay,” he said, straightening up. “What is it?”

~

McKay vanished with Carter and Jackson. Sheppard could hear him loudly mocking the entire story as they walked down the hall. It didn’t matter that he didn’t believe Sheppard. No one did. But if anyone could get the hunk of Ancient tech to give up its secrets, it was McKay. Sheppard believed that.

With that, he forcibly turned his attention to something else. They weren’t letting him near the thing in Carter’s lab, but there was something he could do. Landry wanted to test the theory that Sheppard did indeed have a working knowledge of the Pegasus galaxy. And Sheppard had the perfect way to do just that.

Maybe.

He could have used McKay’s help with it, actually, but wasn’t sure he could take the amount of arguing and verbal abuse it would involve. And this McKay hadn’t been there, really, and wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about. And Sheppard probably couldn’t trick McKay the way he could mislead Landry.

Sheppard did his best, by himself, with Teyla watching him curiously the entire time.

It didn’t really take long. Writing the instructions was the simple part.

“This will help them find the city of the Ancestors?” Teyla asked, sounding dubious, when he was done.

“No,” he said.

Teyla tilted her head. “Did you not tell General Landry that it would?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “I lied.”

Teyla took this in, saying nothing.

“It won’t find Atlantis,” Sheppard told her. “It’ll tell me just how similar this Pegasus is to the one I remember.” He paused. “But don’t tell Landry that?”

“I will not,” Teyla promised. “Of course.” She was still looking at him curiously.

“This is more important,” Sheppard said. “Believe me.”

Sheppard hadn’t quite anticipated just how long it would take for his instructions to reach the Apollo in Pegasus. He should have. No Atlantis, no routine databurst, no McKay-Carter intergalactic bridge…none of that.

When Sheppard turned over the mission instructions, he asked Landry how long it would be until the Apollo received the message.

“Six to eight weeks,” Landry replied. Sheppard stared at him. “It’s another galaxy,” Landry reminded him. “We’ve actually reduced the time since the mission commenced. It used to take almost six months.”

“How?” Sheppard asked. “How does the SGC communicate with –”

“It’s like satellites,” Landry interrupted. “As I understand it. The Apollo builds communication installations as it goes, leaves a trail of them like telephone polls.”

“From Pegasus to Earth,” Sheppard said, his gut twisting.

Landry didn’t sense his alarm. “Correct.”

“A breadcrumb trail for the Wraith to follow,” Sheppard said, loudly.

The expression on Landry’s face flickered. “The Wraith are hibernating,” he said.

“Not all of them,” Teyla spoke up, pointedly.

“And they’d _all_ wake up if they had a food source like Earth,” Sheppard said.

Landry’s brow creased. “I’ll pass on your concerns,” he said. “But we haven’t had any problems for four years, Colonel.”

“You’ve been lucky,” Sheppard said.

But Landry didn’t want to argue with him. Instead, he was scanning Sheppard’s document.

“If the Wraith are so formidable,” Landry began.

“They _are_ ,” Sheppard and Teyla interrupted, simultaneously.

Landry’s gaze flicked off the sheet, up at them both with irritation. “Sharing a brain again?” he said, with amusement. “You must be getting better.” He continued: “Why do you want the Apollo to follow subspace Wraith ship signals?”

“Not Wraith hive signals,” Sheppard corrected. “Those are different. I want the Apollo stay the hell away from those.  Follow the low-frequency Wraith signals. They’re distinct from the hives.”

“If they’re not hives,” Landry said. “What are they?”

Sheppard crossed his arms over his chest. “People.”

“Wraith?” Landry asked.

“People,” Sheppard repeated. “And if the Apollo can find the people the Wraith are hunting, then they’ll know enough to find Atlantis.”

That was a lie. But Landry bought it and Teyla didn’t tell on Sheppard.

~

It was really anticlimactic.

Sheppard’s message to the Apollo, which would only get their mission started, wouldn’t even reach Pegasus for weeks.

McKay was here, now, but even combining his brainpower with Carter’s and Jackson’s, work on the Ancient device retrieved from P3X-463 went slowly.

Sheppard wasn’t allowed to help, even when he pointed out that it was entirely possible he’d actually recognize it on sight. All that got him was permission to enter the room and look at if from a distance. They still seemed to think he wanted to try and touch it or something.

He didn’t know what it was. It looked Ancient and would have fit right in with the general Atlantis architecture and décor, but Sheppard had never seen it before. He pretended he didn’t realize this immediately, though, and took the opportunity to stare at it for a few seconds and watch the three scientists at work. The thing was a big, solid block. Like it should open up and have something inside.

It was familiar to hear McKay’s cranky monologue – interrupted periodically to snipe at Carter and Jackson for various things. Familiar and yet distant, because it felt like ages now since he’d been separated from Atlantis and his team.

Sheppard didn’t seek McKay out, after he was escorted out of the lab where they were working on the device. He kind of wanted to, but there didn’t seem to be a point. This McKay didn’t share anything with Sheppard except a few hellish months under siege on an alien planet, which hadn’t really happened to Sheppard.

Instead, Sheppard went home with Teyla, again. To their quiet little house in the suburbs. He came back to the SGC every day to do the pointless, political duty concocted by General O’Neill. It was boring and pointless to begin with, but now it just seemed tedious and empty.

Teyla didn’t return to the mission that had called her away. Sheppard had kind of expected her to leave again. Evidently, they’d found a new negotiator to persuade the chief guy into letting SG teams pillage all the Goa’uld stuff from his territory.  It turned out to be Lucy Hurst, from Sheppard’s SG team, and Ford and Lorne went along with her. 

 He hadn’t seen them much, lately, but it was still odd not to even pass them in the hallways. SG-1 was still grounded, Carter and Jackson spending every waking hour poking at the Ancient device pulled out of the ground. Teal’c must have taken the opportunity to go hang with the Jaffa or something, because he vanished.

As a result, when he wasn’t playing house with Teyla, Sheppard spent a lot of time with Mitchell. Mitchell and Vala, of all people. Both of whom were bored out of their minds by the inactivity, but couldn’t contribute to the scientific stuff going on in the labs. Well, Vala claimed she could, but they wouldn’t let her touch it.

The medical staples and what not finally came out of Sheppard’s head during this time. It was an uncomfortable, though oddly not that painful procedure. At least he no longer looked like Frankenstein. Well, actually he did, just with giant bald patches where the hardware had been.

Sheppard looked ruefully at himself in the hand mirror Lam provided to show him his new look. “Fantastic,” he said.

“It’ll grow back, I promise,” Lam said.

“Let’s hope so,” Sheppard answered, scowling.

Next to him, Teyla smiled brightly. She reached out and ran her fingers down the side of his head, over the stubble and down to the tip of his chin. “I have missed your hair,” she said.

Lam looked away for a second, as if to give them privacy. Sheppard saw her smile, though. Like she thought this was cute.

“My dad hasn’t missed it,” she said, as Sheppard rose to leave. “He’s secretly hoping it only grows back to regulation-length.”

Sheppard raised an eyebrow.

Lam nodded. “I told him it’s not medically possible.”

With the nuts and bolts out of his skull, Sheppard looked a lot healthier. He no longer had to have physical therapy with Keller, just hit the base gym on his own. Heightmeyer hadn’t rescheduled him for shrink sessions, maybe decided it really didn’t have a point now.

Other than the part where he was riding a desk, life was almost sort of normal. Not by Sheppard’s standards, of course, but still.

He even got roped into the stupid basketball team thing, because Mitchell and Vala were bored and Jackson said sports were among the safest ways to occupy Vala’s time. Sheppard wasn’t very good, not that he’d ever been, but especially after what his body had been through.

Teyla _was_ good. It was bizarre to watch. They didn’t have a basketball court on Atlantis, so he’d never seen her do it before, of course. It shouldn’t have surprised him. Teyla was strong and athletic at everything.  She had excellent hand-eye coordination and despite being the shortest person on the floor, could cut through to the net almost every time.

She also kind of played dirty. Maybe because she was the smallest, but Sheppard saw her jabbing elbows with violent precision into Mitchell’s ribs. She also totally hip checked Vala, once, and sent the other woman sprawling to the floor. Sheppard was glad she was on _his_ team, even if that only made it more unfair since Vala and Mitchell were very obviously going easy on him.

Afterwards, Vala and Mitchell departed the gym, trash-talking until they were out of earshot.

Sheppard took a seat against the wall, a little winded. He was a lot better, but occasionally got reminders like this to kick up the cardio at the gym.

Teyla came and stood over him, leaning on her knees. She was out of breath, too, which made Sheppard feel better.

“You cheat,” he said, resting his arms on his kneecaps and his chin on top.

Teyla laughed. She dropped to the floor and moved so that they were shoulder to shoulder against the wall.

“I do not cheat,” she retorted.

Sheppard snorted his disbelief. Teyla’s arm was hot against his bare skin, hot and slick from exertion.

“Once,” Teyla said, actually panting a little. “Vala convinced Teal’c to bend the metal on our rim so that the ball would not go through.”

“Huh,” Sheppard chuckled. “That’s cheating, too.”

Teyla turned her face toward him to say something else. He saw the sweat-soaked tufts of hair that hadn’t made it into her ponytail flattened against her neck. Teyla parted her lips to speak. Sheppard leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers, swallowing the startled noise she managed to make when he did so.

The kiss wasn’t chaste like before; it was open-mouthed and deep, long enough that Teyla grabbed the back of his head with one hand and held him there, while Sheppard reached across her body to clutch at her opposite hip. His fingers tangled in her waistband, and then they both had to pull away to breathe.

When he looked at her, Teyla was flushed and breathless for a whole different reason.

 “Should requisition a court for Atlantis,” Sheppard said, unthinking. “When we get back.”

He froze before the last word left his mouth, watching as Teyla’s face crumpled.

There was silence for a second, then Teyla spoke. “We were never on –“ she began.

“I know.” Sheppard pulled his arm away from her, refolded it on the top of his knees. He shut his eyes, tilted his head back against the wall. “Sorry.”

~

Teyla scattered from the gym, after that, making a flustered excuse about showering. Sheppard let her go. He went to the men’s locker room showers, giving her a wide berth if she was using the facilities in their quarters. Yeah, he was still supposed to have an escort if she wasn’t with him, but nobody noticed.

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Hadn’t meant to kiss her, either.

Sheppard retreated to the cafeteria, not because he was hungry but because he didn’t know where Teyla had gone and thought she deserved some space.

Half of SG-1 was in the cafeteria. Jackson and Vala were seated near the door, eating Jell-O. Actually, Vala was spoon-feeding Jackson Jell-O. Sheppard stared, squinted, then crossed the room to investigate. When he was closer, Sheppard could see Jackson’s hands lying flat against the tabletop, wrapped entirely in gauze like mittens.

Sheppard walked up to them, tilting his head to get a better look. “Hello,” he said, peering down at them.

Vala looked up at him. “Hello,” she said, cheerily. She was clearly enjoying this.

“Hi,” Jackson said, less thrilled.

“What –”

“McKay turned the damn thing on while I was still touching it,” Daniel snapped. He turned his gauze-covered hands palms up, as if Sheppard could see the injuries. “Ow.”

“The Ancient device?” Sheppard clarified.

Jackson nodded.

“Seems your head screwed up its power distribution system,” Vala informed him.

Sheppard slid into the seat next to Jackson.

“McKay turned it on?” he asked.

“And then I screamed and he turned it off again,” Daniel muttered, looking at his hands angrily.

“So,” Sheppard said, tentatively. “It works?”

“Hrm,” Jackson said. “I don’t think I was supposed to tell you.”

“You just did,” Sheppard snapped, annoyed. “So keep going.”

Jackson shrugged, apparently not all that bothered by disregarding Landry’s orders. “It works,” he said.

“What is it?” Sheppard demanded.

“Broken,” Vala answered him. “Right now.”

“There’s a screen on the side that lit up,” Jackson said. “I saw some writing in Ancient before it powered down. McKay and Carter are trying to stabilize the power so it doesn’t throw the next person who touches it across the room. Then, I can get started on translating whatever it says.” He shrugged. “That should at least tell us what it is and maybe what it did to you.”

Excitement flared in Sheppard’s chest, but he kept his face carefully blank.

“Okay,” he said, evenly. “Thanks for telling me.”

It took a really long time for McKay and Carter to get the thing to that point, though. Every time Sheppard checked, Vala had a new story about someone nearly getting electrocuted whenever McKay tried to turn the device on.

It was really frustrating. And it felt like _forever_.

Sheppard and Teyla didn’t talk about the kiss in the basketball gym, or the borderline insane thing Sheppard had said afterwards.

He knew why it had happened. Both things, even though they were mutually exclusive. Either he was married to Teyla or he was going back to Atlantis. One or other. He knew this, and so did she. And so they didn’t talk about it.

~

Sixteen weeks after Landry sent Sheppard’s message to the Apollo, somewhere in Pegasus, the SGC got a response.

Of course, they didn't tell Sheppard about it until a week later. Landry and a bunch of other higher ups read it first. And totally didn't understand what it meant. Sheppard had told them his instructions would help lead Apollo to Atlantis. They hadn't. Not to Atlantis, but to Runners hunted by the Wraith, who might have heard of the city of the Ancients but surely didn't know where it was.

Sheppard hadn't remembered the exact frequency of the transmitter implanted in Ronon. But he'd remembered its general range and how different it was from the signals broadcast by Wraith vessels. He'd hoped that be enough, and that the Apollo commander (Colonel Ellis, maybe? Who knew?) would be skilled enough to recognize the difference between a Runner and a hive ship, if it came to that.

It hadn't been the safest decision. Sheppard had thought about how badly the SGC was apparently underestimating the Wraith. He'd had thoughts that in sending the Apollo to find the Runners, he'd help the Wraith find the Apollo and the technological trail back to the Milky Way.

But Sheppard had done it anyway. He'd lied to Landry and the entire military structure, and sent the Apollo to rescue Ronon. 

Landry called him and Teyla to his office to read the report.

The Apollo had found seven Runners. Three living and four corpses.

Sheppard's heart shot straight into his throat when he read that part of the report. He had half-expected it. Eleven years was a long time, too long for one man, even if that man was Ronon, to survive as prey to the monsters of Pegasus. It didn’t make it easier to read.

The Apollo had buried the four bodies they found, which was noted as an afterthought in the report but actually made Sheppard unexpectedly content. It was something, even if the Apollo was too late to help them in any other way.

The surgical crew of the Apollo's medical staff performed the extractions in the field on the three separate planets where the surviving Runners were found. Following Sheppard's strict instructions, the ship's sensors had been used to locate the men. Marines with Zats knocked the Runners out and stood guard until the operation was over.

Afterwards, Sheppard had told the crew of the Apollo to ask about Atlantis, but let the Runners go immediately, regardless of their answers. He hadn't been wholly sure that part of his instructions would be obeyed.  

It had been. Two of the Runners had given the predictably useless answers and been released. The third had woken up before the Zat blast should have worn off, knocked out the Doctor that tried to talk to him, and vanished by the time anyone else noticed.

Sheppard had to put the mission report down in his lap when he got to that part, the words blurring on the page. He pretended to be engrossed in it as he blinked until his eyes cleared. He was under Landry’s watchful eye, and he didn’t have an explanation why it would make him so emotional.

He knew it was Ronon before he even got to the description of third Runner. But the height and the hair confirmed it: Ronon was alive and the Apollo had removed the Wraith transmitter.

“Does that make any sense to you?” Landry asked him.

Sheppard looked up from his lap, forcing his features blank. “No,” he said, slowly. A lie he hadn’t even planned on telling came out of his mouth: “One of those people should have known where Atlantis was,” he said, peaceably. “But it was a woman,” he added. “She must not have survived.”

Next to him, Sheppard could tell by the expression on Teyla’s face that she didn’t believe a word he was saying.

“She told you where Atlantis was?” Landry asked.

“No,” Sheppard said, careful not to contradict himself. But he wasn’t a great liar. “We met her later and she knew where Atlantis was. She’d never come because the Wraith were pursuing her.”

It sounded good to him.

“Atlantis wasn’t where we thought it would be,” Landry told him. “But you remember that it was.”

Sheppard avoided eye contact, looking past the General at the wall behind him.

“We still don’t know why,” he reminded Landry, shrugging. “I’m sorry. But, at the very least, you set some innocent people free.”

And that was completely and totally true.

Teyla confronted him, the moment they were out of the General’s office.

“What was that about?” she asked, softly as they walked down the corridor.

“A friend of ours,” Sheppard answered.

“Yours,” Teyla said.

“Ours,” Sheppard repeated. “I hope you get to meet him someday.”

  
[ ](http://www.statcounter.com/blogger/)~


	7. The Undone Years  7/7

Two days after the meeting with Landry about the message from the Apollo, Sheppard and Teyla were called to another meeting. This one was in the debriefing room rather than Landry’s office, though. And when they arrived, McKay and SG-1 minus Teal’c were already seated at the conference table.

Landry wasn’t there yet. Sheppard took a seat and Teyla pulled out the chair next to him.

“Got it to work?” he said, mildly to McKay, across the table.

McKay blinked at him. “Of course I did.”

“How long ago?” Sheppard asked, since he assumed they probably hadn’t deemed to share it with him.

“A while,” Carter answered, honestly. “Daniel’s been working on the translation until now.”

“I miss any other meetings?” Sheppard inquired, suspiciously.

“No,” Mitchell said. “Don’t be so paranoid.”

But Vala spilled for him. “Just the one,” she promised. “Where McKay and Sam fought over who actually fixed it.”

Carter glared at her, while McKay rolled his eyes.

Landry arrived then. He glanced around as he took a seat at the head of the table. “Begin without me?” he asked.

“No, sir,” answered Carter. “Just saying hello.”

Landry nodded his forgiveness. “Very well. Dr. Jackson, why don’t you begin?”

Jackson scooted back in his chair and open his mouth to speak, at which point McKay made an irritated noise in his throat. Jackson paused.

“I’m sorry, I guess Dr. McKay would like to go first,” he said.

“He might,” Landry agreed, lightly. “But I asked you to speak, not him.”

McKay scowled, but Jackson just went on.

“Alright,” he said, passing out thin manila folders to everyone seated. “I’ll get straight to the point. “Does everyone remember the quantum mirror we recovered several years ago?”

“No,” said Sheppard, flatly.

“Right,” Jackson said. “It was a portal made from naquadah found on P3R-233, that allowed access to parallel universes.”

“Alternate universes,” Sheppard repeated.

“We never determined the origin of the quantum mirror,” Jackson continued, “But what you hit your head on looks like the Ancient version of the same thing.”

“John’s memories are of a parallel universe’s experience?” Teyla asked, cutting to the chase.

Jackson paused. “Yeah,” he said, gesturing with one hand. “But I had a little more to say leading up to that.”

“None of it _relevant_ ,” McKay interrupted. He looked at Landry. “You wanted to know why they built this thing? So they could stick their noses in parallel universes without any of the complications of actually messing with quantum travel. _Laziness_.”

“Or efficiency,” Carter interjected. “We know from experience how bizarre it can be to have, um, doppelgangers pop up from parallel universes.”

“Bizarre,” Landry said, “As well as dangerous.”

“I think it sounds fun,” Vala said, thoughtfully.

“You aren’t going near that thing,” Jackson hissed at her.

“Anyway,” Carter said, loudly. “We’re assuming that the purpose of this device was to harvest information about events in parallel universes without going through all the trouble of –”

“Talking to people,” McKay interrupted, “Which I understand.”

“- of having to tell the residents of that universe where you came from, convincing them to believe you, identifying key differences that separate the realities, determining their usefulness,” Carter continued. “Not to mention the technical complications, like temporal distortion.”

“So rather than go through all that,” Mitchell said. “They built a machine to download someone’s brain –” he paused, and made a face at the thought – “from that parallel universe?”

“Simplistic,” McKay said, “but, yeah.”

“Wait a second,” Sheppard said, unable to keep quiet. “This is better? I thought I was crazy! And so did everyone else!”

“You used it wrong,” McKay snapped.

There was silence for a second, until Carter tentatively agreed with McKay.

“Well,” she said. “We’re assuming that if someone activated this device, they’re expecting to have their memories altered. And that, afterwards, they’d be able and willing to share whatever information they were after in the first place.”

“You fell on it,” Vala said, unhelpfully.

“What about his original memories?” Teyla spoke up, pointedly. “How can we recover those?”

“We can’t,” McKay said, bluntly. “He broke it.”

“What?” asked Landry,

“I’ve only been able to access about half of the instructions,” Jackson said, sighing. “If half. The rest of it appears to have been corrupted or destroyed by all the power surges McKay caused trying to turn it on.”

“Hey!” McKay yelled.

“We don’t know that the memories were ever intended to be recovered,” Carter spoke up. “It’s possible that they weren’t. It might have been a known sacrifice of using the device.”

Teyla was looking at the tabletop, her face pursed unhappily.

“You said you don’t know,” Sheppard prompted.

“We don’t,” Jackson answered, for her. “I translated all the Ancient text that wasn’t destroyed.”

 “There’s a lot we don’t know,” Carter continued. “For example, why five years appears to be the time frame it was set for. Alternate universes can diverge at any point, one year, ten years, one million years. You’d never be able to determine the point of divergence. Five years is a shot in the dark.”

“Or what happened to the individual whose memories are harvested,” Jackson said, thoughtfully. He looked at Sheppard, brow creased. “The John Sheppard from the universe you remember might have the memories of this universe’s Sheppard.”

“I am the John Sheppard from the universe I remember,” Sheppard snapped.

“Yeah.” Jackson shook his head. “Unless it didn’t have an impact on the alternate universes it was involved with, this could be a very unethical machine. Imagine, one day you wake up and don’t remember five years, because a guy – you –  in an alternate universe thinks he can benefit from something you know.”

Sheppard knew exactly what that was like. He didn’t have to imagine anything.

“Have you tested it?” Sheppard asked.

“No,” Landry said, sharply. “I was very clear about that.”

“You tested it,” Vala muttered. “I don’t think we’ll be doing that again.”

“What I’d like to know,” McKay said, “is why the hell the Ancients would build a device like this. It’s half-brilliant, half-ridiculous.”

“Sounds like them,” Sheppard murmured. He met Rodney’s eyes. “They didn’t always act as a unit and some of their scientists were fucking insane.”

He’d just cursed in front of Landry, but he didn’t really care.

“Perhaps it was a simple matter of using the device twice,” Teyla spoke up, voice hopeful. “Once to ‘harvest’ the memories, as you say, and once to return the user’s original experiences.”

“There’s nothing to support that idea, Teyla,” Carter said, gently.

“I wouldn’t stick my brain in there,” McKay announced. “His brain,” he glanced at Sheppard. “Maybe.”

“The power distribution system is severely damaged,” Carter said. “It’s producing constant low-grade electrical shocks just from being turned on. I’d be very afraid that actually activating it would electrocute anyone touching it, rather than anything else.”

“Oh,” Teyla said, softly.

“Anything else?” Landry asked.

“No,” Jackson answered. “I think that’s about it.”

“There’s no chance,” Sheppard began. He paused. “No chance you can fix it?”

“Of course I could fix it,” McKay said. “Eventually. But we still wouldn’t know how it works and they aren’t going to let you stick your head in it to see.”

“He’s correct, Colonel,” Landry said. “From what I can tell, this is a dangerous piece of equipment that should probably be destroyed before it accidentally does something to someone else.” He was looking sympathetically but seriously at Sheppard.

“Also,” McKay muttered. “I don’t work here anymore.” He smirked.

“I appreciate your hard work on this matter. You’re all dismissed,” Landry said. “Especially you, Dr. McKay.”

McKay made a face, already rising.

Sheppard stayed seated with Teyla, sensing Landry had something further to say.

The General did, but it didn’t really change anything.

“I’m sorry,” Landry said. “I understand that this must still be difficult for you, but I hope these answers help.”

“They do,” Teyla said, somewhat sincerely.

Sheppard just nodded.  
  
"I'll let you have some time to think this over," Landry continued, generously.

“I’m gonna go say goodbye to McKay,” Sheppard said, rising.

Landry grinned. “You can escort him out of the building,” he agreed.

~

Sheppard caught up with McKay at the elevators. For pretending to be so eager to leave, the man was taking his sweet time finding his way out.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, coming up to him.

McKay glared at him. “What do you want?”

“I’m escorting you out of the building,” Sheppard fell back on.

McKay sneered. “Gonna search me?”

“No,” Sheppard said, as the elevator arrived and they both entered. “Why, did you steal something to give to the Russians?”

“Just my brain,” McKay said, smirking.

The elevator doors closed and the car began the long climb to the surface. Sheppard didn’t say anything, just watched the numbers above the doors light up one after another.

“Why do you keep bothering me?” McKay demanded, after a few seconds of silence. “You had Carter pester me, you showed up at a _physics_ conference to harass me, and Carter said it was your idea to bring me in on this.”

“I’m from an alternate universe,” Sheppard told him, shrugging.

“ _Parallel_ universe,” McKay corrected.

“We were friends,” Sheppard said. “There.”

McKay snorted. “Really.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, ignoring the man’s disbelief. “On Atlantis.”

For a moment, McKay didn’t say anything. He seemed to be trying to keep from saying something. And not surprisingly, he failed.

“The Russians have a mission to Pegasus,” he said. “We’re going to find Atlantis.”

Sheppard tried not to show much reaction. “That why you’re going to Russia?”

McKay nodded. “Well, mostly Veronika.  But also the fact that they can’t possibly screw it up any worse than the IOA did.”

“Hmm,” was all Sheppard said. The elevator chimed as it reached the surface. “Atlantis is amazing,” he said, sincerely. “You love it.” He paused, corrected himself. “You will love it.”

This made confusion settled over McKay’s features.

The doors slid apart, but Sheppard stayed against the back wall as McKay moved forward.

“Bye,” McKay muttered at him.

“Later,” Sheppard said. He waited until the doors began to move shut again. “Hey, Rodney!”

McKay paused, the elevator doors inching closer and closer together. “What?” he asked.

“Look underwater,” Sheppard said, softly.

“What?” asked McKay, in confusion. “What do you –” but his voice was drowned out by the elevator doors sliding shut and the ping as Sheppard hit the down button.

~

Sheppard found Teyla in the cafeteria, sitting alone with a cup of coffee. She looked tired. Maybe a little sad, but more tense and exhausted.

“Hi,” he said, coming to sit beside her.

“Did you say goodbye to your friend?” Teyla asked, trying for sincere.

“He’s not my friend,” Sheppard said. “He thinks I’m an asshole.”

Teyla gave a little shrug. “But you remember him.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed. “Doesn’t really matter, though.” He waited, watched Teyla examine the inside of her coffee cup. “I’m sorry, Teyla,” he said.

“I am sorry, as well,” Teyla said, raising her eyes. “I did not…” she paused. “I did not expect this.”

“Me neither,” Sheppard said, genuinely. “I thought…I thought there’d be a way to get your husband back.” And get me home, he added silently.

“You are my husband,” Teyla said, immediately. Before he could speak, she went on. “When you fell, they told me that you would die. I did not expect to…I did not expect to ever be with you again.” She paused. “This is better.”

Sheppard didn’t say anything.

“I have lost a little,” Teyla continued. Her hands jerked on the table top like she wanted to touch him and was restraining herself. “You have lost more, I think.” She took a deep breath. “I understand that you want to make it right.”

“You do?”

Teyla nodded, but her eyes were beginning to glitter.  “You must try,” she said. “I understand.”

Sheppard didn’t move. He put one hand down on the table, covering hers. Beneath his touch, he could feel her trembling.

“What’s with all the yellow?” he asked. “In our house.”

Teyla tilted her head and didn’t answer for a second. “It is the color of fertility,” she said, clearly.

“Oh,” Sheppard said, nodding. That made sense. “Okay.” He paused. “Will you speak to Ford and Lorne for me?” he asked.

“If I must,” Teyla answered. 

Fair enough. “Tell ‘em,” Sheppard said, “and tell Landry, to look under the ocean. That’s where I’ll be.”

With the hand that wasn’t covering hers, he turned her face towards his. Her eyes were swimming with tears as he leaned his forehead in and touched it to hers.

Teyla pulled one hand free from his grasp, brought it up and cupped the back of his head, holding him against her tightly. Sheppard let her stay. He could feel the warmth of tears dripping down her face and landing on his neck.

Sheppard gently slipped out of her hold, taking her arm by the wrist and setting it back on the table top. He leaned in and kissed her, lightly, on the lips.

“I’ll see you at home,” he promised. “One way or the other.”

Teyla could have stopped him. She knew exactly what he intended. She could have screamed for help. Or, she could have physically stopped him from leaving the room. He wouldn’t have fought back, and even if he had, she still would have won.

“I will see you,” Teyla said, in return.

Sheppard rose and walked away. He didn’t look back. With purpose, he walked through the hall and took an elevator down to the labs where McKay, Carter, and Jackson had been working.

Miraculously, the room was unguarded. Security cameras would see him, sure, but no one would get here quickly enough to stop him. The device was still sitting on the floor, glowing a gentle green. No one had followed through yet with the General’s order to destroy it.

Sheppard walked up to it. Under the bright lights, it was easy to identify the circle at head level and the hands outlined above it. Sheppard raised his arms, bringing his palms down against the surface. He immediately felt the sparking jolts of electricity McKay had mentioned.

He didn’t stop.

Leaning forward, Sheppard pressed his forehead into the circle and closed his eyes.

He waited a second, the machine already tingling against his skin.

Then, with a thought, he turned it on and thought of home.  
  
 

~ The End ~  
 

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